TIMELINE
Rescue robots through the years
A mere 30 years ago, rescue robots were in their infancy, often used or created as an afterthought of a tragic event. But over the years, the tides turned. With a large early push from the academic community, robotics companies and the military now regularly see their unmanned systems put in the line of danger.
2001
Sept. 11, 2001 Three experimental robots were used at the World Trade Center disaster site in
1983
New York City through work with search and rescue robot pioneer Robin Murphy, director of the Center for Robot Assisted
Three Mile Island
Search and Rescue, then located at the University of South Florida. The robots carried thermal cameras to detect body heat
dangerous nuclear
and color detection cameras that searched
fallout after the Three
for colors that varied from the gray dust
Mile Island meltdown
that encapsulated lower Manhattan after
in 1979, researchers
the attack.
0
started formulating
0
ideas for rescue robots that would be used to
0
clean up in the nuclear contamination zone.
2
A Carnegie Mellon University team developed three robots, called Workhorses, to clean up the basement
5
of a damaged reactor at the worst nuclear
9
disaster in U.S. history. brought back core
9
1
2002
The robots, which
samples and surveyed the area, entered the disaster zone in 1983 and 1984.
1998
Chernobyl disaster Although the robot was used long after the 1986 disaster, once again, Carnegie Mellon went into a nuclear disaster with a robot, this one named Pioneer. This robot was equipped with sensors to measure radiation, temperature and humidity; sample concrete structures; and make a 3-D map of the disaster environment, part of a multimillion dollar effort to reinforce the power plant so it wouldn’t leak another large amount of fallout because of structural collapse.
Quecreek Mine disaster Inaccurate underground maps led nine miners astray, trapping them in an adjoining mine. Although miners in the Pennsylvania disaster were rescued by people, the emergency led to the development of robotics pioneer William “Red” Whittaker’s Groundhog robot, which could create accurate mine maps to avoid similar future disasters.
2
Murphy and her graduate students used
In the extremely