If the robot gets its arm stuck and doesn’t know how to free itself, the mission fails. Navigating these chaotic environments requires a high degree of adaptability that current artificial-intelligence algorithms can’t yet achieve.įor example, if an autonomous robot encounters a door handle but can’t find a match in its database of door handles, the mission fails. One reason to have humans in the loop is the unpredictable nature of a disaster scene. The DARPA Robotics Challenge in the United States and Japan’s ImPACT Tough Robotics Challenge are among the recent efforts that have demonstrated the possibilities of teleoperation. Hence the growing interest in teleoperation. We’re nowhere near that level of capability. Someday, we hope to be able to send a robot into a burning building to search for victims all on its own, or deploy a robot at a damaged industrial facility and have it locate which valve it needs to shut off. You could say we’re putting a human brain inside the machine.įuture disaster robots will ideally have a great deal of autonomy. Through this human-robot link, the robot can harness the operator’s innate motor skills and split-second reflexes to keep its footing. We then capture that physical response and send it back to the robot, which helps it avoid falling, too. So if the robot steps on debris and starts to lose its balance, the operator feels the same instability and instinctively reacts to avoid falling. With support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), we are building a telerobotic system that has two parts: a humanoid capable of nimble, dynamic behaviors, and a new kind of two-way human-machine interface that sends your motions to the robot and the robot’s motions to you. For a fully immersive experience, special goggles can let the operator see what the robot sees through its cameras, and a haptic vest and gloves can provide tactile sensations to the operator’s body.Īt MIT’s Biomimetic Robotics Lab, our group is pushing the melding of human and machine even further, in hopes of accelerating the development of practical disaster robots. More recently, researchers have experimented with motion-capture systems to transfer a person’s movements to a humanoid robot in real time: You wave your arms and the robot mimics your gestures. Teleoperated robots have long been used in industrial, aerospace, and underwater settings. One way of compensating for this limitation is to use teleoperation-having a human operator remotely control the robot, either continuously or during specific tasks, to help it accomplish more than it could on its own. To test their teleoperation scheme, the MIT researchers had HERMES perform some tasks that required strength, like using a fire extinguisher. Pushing open a heavy door, discharging a fire extinguisher, and other simple but arduous work require a level of coordination that robots have yet to master. ![]() ![]() Researchers are also building humanoid robots that can survey the damage and perform critical tasks such as accessing instrumentation panels or transporting first-aid equipment.īut despite the advances, building robots that have the same motor and decision-making skills of emergency workers remains a challenge. Research groups around the world have demonstrated unmanned ground vehicles that can drive over rubble, robotic snakes that can squeeze through narrow gaps, and drones that can map a site from above. ![]() Fukushima forced many of us in the robotics community to realize that we needed to get our technology out of the lab and into the world.ĭisaster-response robots have made significant progress since Fukushima. It was the perfect mission for a robot, but none in Japan or elsewhere had the capabilities to pull it off. Reports following the accident described how high levels of radiation foiled workers’ attempts to carry out urgent measures, such as operating pressure valves. A sudden, tragic wake-up call: That’s how many roboticists view the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, caused by the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011.
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