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Two years ago, Alice Agogino, a UC-Berkeley mechanical engineering professor, was working on a contract to build exploratory robots for NASA Ames. She had been recruited to help design what would eventually become a fleet of mobile, ultra-impact-resistant, remote-sensing robots that could protect sensitive scientific equipment during a drop from orbit onto the surface of a moon\u2014specifically Titan, an ice-covered moon of Saturn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then she read a report that brought her research back down to Earth.The report, from the International Red Cross and Crescent, suggested that a generous portion of casualties among first responders\u2014emergency workers tasked with initial disaster management\u2014could be linked to poor situational awareness on the ground.Suddenly, Agogino recognized the potential for a brand-new use for her robots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Agogino read the report, she knew what she was creating could be the wave of the future on our own planet. Situational awareness was precisely the goal of the NASA bots, whose every feature was designed to protect and operate the most advanced sensory equipment available.Everything that made the squishy bots the perfect space recon agents\u2014their autonomous sensing power, remote control capabilities, and unprecedented impact durability\u2014would serve them equally well as members of the advanced guard of Earth-bound disaster responders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To realize her vision, Agogino and two members from the NASA team incorporated Squishy Robotics, a startup out of UC Berkeley\u2019s SkyDeck accelerator. The starting model was a static version of the mobile robot Agogino had been working on for NASA, which was about the size and shape of a geodesic soccer ball.Once the lab was staffed and funded\u2014in part by the same NASA Ames grant that had started it all\u2014there was just one thing Agogino had to do: learn everything there is to know about disaster response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the course of 18 months of research, the Squishy Robotics team conducted over 200 interviews with first responders across the United States.\u201cEverything was surprising,\u201d Agogino says of the experience. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole ecology around first responders. It\u2019s not only the fire department\u2014it turns out it\u2019s Homeland Security, the military, and even utilities employees. A lot of fires are being started by faulty industrial electronic equipment.\u201dThe firefighters, federal officers, and utilities workers invited Agogino and her research team to explore the complexity of their work by going over work plans, demonstrating the use of their equipment, and pointing out the problems they face daily as they try to minimize the damage of a huge range of possible disasters.The common refrain, however, was the challenge of situational awareness: How could they get vital information about safety hazards at the disaster site before they could pose a threat to rescuers or bystanders?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lack of foresight about conditions on the ground is much worse than an inconvenience. In 2005, the worst chemical hazard disaster in U.S. history took place following a train collision in Graniteville, South Carolina. While rescue workers were suiting up nearby to intervene, they had no way to know that poisonous chlorine gas was already spreading from a damaged tanker on one of the trains into the surrounding residential area.With no early warning signs to begin evacuation procedures, the industrial disaster management team couldn\u2019t issue the order to evacuate until the chlorine had formed an enormous cloud of airborne poison in the low-lying valley of the surrounding area, when some of the nine fatalities and 631 chlorine gas injuries had already occurred. The event is still used as a training scenario for first responders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More recent disasters have reiterated the deadly cost of a lack of intel on the ground.One of the three fire departments now partnering with Squishy Robotics to flight-test the bots is the Houston Fire Department, which was responsible for addressing the unexpected industrial side effects of Hurricane Harvey\u2019s massive flooding in 2017.\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t think a hurricane would cause electrical issues,\u201d Agogino says, \u201cbut those power outages shut down a chemical plant near Houston, causing materials like peroxides to heat up and explode.\u201dThe plant, multinational chemical manufacturer Arkema Inc., was later sued by first responders who sought medical treatment after exposure to the toxins, Mother Jones reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Few in the engineering world understand this challenge better than Robin Murphy, a Texas A&M professor of computer science and engineering and co-founder of the field of disaster robotics.As vice president of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), Murphy has had a hand in robotic search-and-rescue operations for 28 disasters, ranging from the World Trade Center attacks to mudslides, hurricanes, mine collapses, floods, volcanoes, and nuclear incidents\u2014all of which qualify as CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive threat) events, according to Homeland Security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murphy\u2019s work covers disaster robotics theory, CBRNE hazards, and rescue operations, which could all eventually benefit from situational awareness technology like squishy robots, she says.\u201cI think it\u2019s exciting. There\u2019s lots of possibilities [for this approach],\u201d says Murphy. \u201cGround sensors are particularly useful for CBRNE environments. It\u2019s something we wish we had had for the La Conchita mudslides.\u201dThe deployment of CRASAR robots at those mudslides in La Conchita, California, which occurred in the same month as the Graniteville train disaster, was largely considered a failure, in part because of a lack of training data with which to prepare the unmanned mobile CRASAR robots sent into demolished homes to search for survivors. Because the robots could not sense the seriousness of a threat of further slides, they had to be removed from the site within minutes of deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout her career in disaster robotics, Murphy has observed a recurring theme of complex and unpredictable terrain defying even the most ambitious technological interventions.\u201cThe big problem is getting enough power to get a signal back, to return that data [from the ground sensors],\u201d says Murphy. \u201cThe wireless isn\u2019t very good. When you start dropping these things into rubble, or even a chemical train derailment, just one piece of rebar metal can block the wireless signal.\u201dOther challenges include mobility on shifting terrain for the next generation of squishy robots, as well as the severe limitations of building something small and light enough to fly without losing valuable equipment capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReal situational awareness requires advanced cameras, GPS, chemical and radiological sensors, proprioceptive sensors\u2014not to mention processors to turn all that data into a usable signal,\u201d Murphy says. \u201cThese things start adding weight, cost, and energy consumption, all of which make the units harder to build and operate.\u201dEven more frustrating? The surprising vulnerability of the typical robotics materials to the harsh conditions of disasters.\u201cBiological systems like arms and legs are cheap,\u201d Murphy dryly says, noting the relative hardiness of human mobility systems when compared to their mechanical counterparts. Robots, on the other hand, are \u201csusceptible to dust, corrosion, and water damage\u201d\u2014to say nothing of the impact of a 400-foot drop to the Earth\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That drop was the one engineering challenge that the Squishy team had already mastered when Agogino began to interview first responders. For the NASA contract, Agogino and other engineers had turned to the wisdom of 20th-century inventor and architect R. Buckminster Fuller. One of his most lasting contributions to design was the concept of tensegrity, a portmanteau of tensional integrity.Tensegrity structures are marked by their high strength-to-weight ratios and their ability to distribute forces delivered to one section of the object across the entire structure.\u201cTechnically, it means all forces are axial,\u201d says Agogino, adding that impacts would be translated to structural compression rather than causing twisting or breakage: \u201cThat\u2019s what makes the robots squishy.\u201dAgogino says that tensegrity structures have appeared in sculptures, artwork, and even buildings, like the famous geodesic dome popularized in the U.S. by Fuller, but Squishy Robotics represents the first formal effort to incorporate the tensegrity principle into a robotics project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the help of the first responders who shared their knowledge and experience with the research team, Squishy Robotics developed a model that expert rescuers would be enthusiastic about using in their work\u2014even when that meant deviating from the engineers\u2019 contrary instincts. \u201cThey\u2019re not autonomous robots, at the request of the first responders, who don\u2019t trust autonomous systems in these dangerous environments,\u201d Agogino says. The first responders also requested live camera feeds so they can see what the robot sees in real time, a feature now incorporated into the standard squishy robot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Field testing for these stationary sensor robots has already begun, thanks to partnerships with the Houston, Alameda, and LA County fire departments, but that doesn\u2019t mean the Squishy team are getting complacent. The first-responder interviews yielded a slew of new avenues for future iterations of the robots, several of which are already being tested in the lab.\u201cWe\u2019re working on putting rotors on the robot to make them low-to-the-ground drones, which can maneuver throughout buildings,\u201d Agogino says. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve had a request to make them float [for use in water rescues and flood incidents].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Translating the accomplishments of the stationary squishy bots to mobile versions will be its own challenge. \u201cThe first mobile robot we built for NASA could only withstand a five-foot drop,\u201d Agogino recalls.But part of the goal of the fire department partnerships is to find out how to apply successful practices to the complex machinery of a mobile squishy bot, which would have to include both sensor equipment and space-ready mobility systems like cold-gas thrusters. \u201cWe are learning from the stationary robot how to design and build the mobile version so it can be dropped from higher,\u201d says Agogino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A moon landing may be as distant as two decades away, Dr. Agogino says, but in the meantime, the genius of the robots\u2019 design could potentially save hundreds of lives. And there\u2019s no denying that the bots themselves are compelling creations with the ability to increase people\u2019s comfort with working alongside robots in the field.\u201cYou can\u2019t help but feel affection [for the robots]\u2014they appeal to a lot of people,\u201d Agogino says. \u201cThey\u2019re not scary like some security robots or defense machines. We embrace the fact that we are lightweight and can work around humans without hurting them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n