Christian Frey wants to help solve the problem of loss of life during disasters. Natural disasters and industrial accidents all have uniquely different circumstances but require immediate action to save lives. Search and rescue needs to be done in the first seventy two hours for disaster workers to have the best chance of saving victims. Frey breaks disaster response into four categories: alarm, exploration, search and rescue. Frey’s goal is to reduce the time for exploration and search, allowing rescue teams to do more work in that seventy two hour window.
In his Solve for X talk SENEKA Frey presents the systems he’s been developing to robotically reduce rescue times. SENEKA’s strength is in the variety of vehicles and sensors that are used to collect information, and the communication between those components. Standardized interfaces allow every user to access the same data in the same way.
UAVs are used for aerial surveillance. Eight propeller drones were developed to maintain balance and send clear visual information, and can also deliver payloads. Ground vehicles are used for exploration and mapping. Robots enter an area and their exploration algorithms try to find the most interesting or unusual points in the zone to relay back that information. The most interesting vehicle for me is the high-end sensor probes that can act as beacons constantly monitoring an area that has been cleared. This is the probot from The Empire Strikes Back, brought to life in 2015.
Best-price sensor probes are robotic ball machines that roll where needed and give visual and audio information to the user. Probes can be tossed into a disaster area or delivered by UAV or UGV. Impact of hitting the ground activates the probes before they roll around gathering data. The probes also contain an SOS button to help victims to send their location to rescue teams.
Frey’s project is incredibly ambitious and has accomplished a great deal for a small team of twelve developers from the Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation. He hopes that in ten years robot-assisted exploration is standard for every search and rescue operation.