Return and plans for the future
The Snakebot team eventually had to return to the United States without finding a survivor. However, about 6,500 people were rescued with the help of search and rescue teams from all over the world.
By chance, Choset had a long conversation with a woman whose husband was a security guard. buried for eight days in the collapsed basement of a mall. He later described himself as overjoyed when he learned that the woman’s husband had been removed safely.
“He had two kids and the same age gap as my two boys, so he came home for me,” Choset told Ars.
Carnegie Mellon researchers have several ideas for how to improve the snake robot for possible future deployments. One of their priorities is to add light-based sensors that can help the snake robot perform a 3D point cloud map of its environment — giving the robot operator and search and rescue teams a better idea of how to steer the robot under collapsed buildings.
Mexican search and rescue workers from the volunteer group Los Topos responded to find four people from the rubble of buildings that collapsed in Venezuela after two earthquakes struck on June 24.
Credit: Howie Choset
Mexican search and rescue workers from the volunteer group Los Topos responded to find four people from the rubble of buildings that collapsed in Venezuela after two earthquakes struck on June 24.
Credit: Howie Choset
Upon their return, team members also wrote notes about their experiences to create a to-do list for future unexpected trips. “The big thing is what to pack and how to pack,” Choset said.
Snake robots are still very much research prototypes, not operational tools for search and rescue. But Choset credited his team’s previous experience and training in search-and-rescue scenarios using the snake bots, which included periods of breaking and fixing the robots to improve them. He also emphasized his lab’s philosophy of investing time and energy into building robust robots that can reliably operate beyond a few research demonstrations.
“My students and staff took the position of, ‘Let’s make sure these are as robust systems as possible,'” Choset said. “So when we’re doing our research, we’re not constantly fighting the robot to get things right.”
