Robot Assisted Emergency Search and Rescue System With a Wireless Sensor Network

The unprecedented number and scales of natural and human-induced disasters in the past decade has urged the emergency search and rescue community around the world to seek for newer, more effective equipment to enhance their efficiency. Search and rescue technology to-date still rely on old technologies such as search dogs, camera mounted probes, and technology that has been in service for decades. Intelligent robots equipped with advanced sensors are attracting more and more attentions from researchers and rescuers. This paper presents the design and application of a distributed wireless sensor network prototyping system for tracking mobile search and rescue robots. The robotic system can navigate autonomously into rubbles and to search for living human body heat using its thermal array sensor. The wireless sensor network helps to track the location of the robot by analyzing signal strength. Design and development of the network and the physical robot prototype are described in this paper.