On Sep 9 2016 the TRADR coordinator I. Kruijff-Korbayova gave an invited talk about robot-assisted disaster response in Helsinki at the Delegates Assembly & Symposium of CTIF, the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services. CTIF was founded in 1999 as an international professional firebrigade competency network for encouraging and promoting co-operation among fire fighters and other experts in fire and rescue. It has members from 36 countries around the world. Its work is organized by commissions which set up working groups on specific themes.
I. Kruijff-Korbayova is a member of the CTIF commission on Extrication and New Technology, which she has been invited to join after her invited talk at the International Conference of CTIF on December 9 2015 at the Italian Firebrigade Academy (Istituto Superiore Anticendi, ISA) in Rome (see an earlier post). The commission for Extrication and New Technology was established in 2013 to work on standards in order to be able to harmonise information and training for the rescue services.
The presentation was part of the CTIF Symposium on”Responding to the Unexpected” and featured the results of the NIFTi and TRADR projects, including the recent success of the TRADR deployment in Amatrice, Italy, destroyed by a devastating earthquake on August 24 2016. The presentation was met with great resonance from the representatives of fire and rescue services, and many expressed interest to further explore the use of robots to support disaster response. TRADR will continue to strengthen the collaboration with these organizations.
On Thursday September 1 2016 a team of the TRADR project deployed two ground robots and three drones in Amatrice, Italy, to assist the post-earthquake response. The team was asked by the Italian Vigili del Fuoco (VVFF), represented by Emanuele Gissi, to provide 3D textured models of two churches: San Francesco and Sant’Agostino, both in a state of partial collapse, in need of shoring to prevent potential further destruction and to preserve the national heritage.
UGV in San Francesco church, aerial view by the UAV that also entered.
View taken by the UAV inside the San Francesco church
We entered San Francesco with two UGVs (operated by Vlada Kubelka and Mario Gianni, who were supported by Erik Zimmermann and Luigi Freda, respectively), teleoperating them entirely out of line of sight, and partially in collaboration: one UGV provided a view of the other one to enable maneuvering in very constrained space with low connection bandwidth.
View taken by the UAV inside the Sant Agostino church
UAV entering the Sant Agostino church (red circle). Two other UAVs provide a view for maneuvering (one in yellow circle, the other providing the image).
Several flights were carried out on the outside and one flight inside of each church. Entering with the drone was a tough challenge, which we managed thanks to a collaboration between three drones operated in parallel: while one drone (piloted by Hartmut Surmann who was supported by Erik Zimmermann) was entering through a hole in the roof the other two (piloted by Kresimir Dilic and Wolfgang Rottner) were providing simultaneous video feed from different angles. The mission fulfilled its goal to collect data for the construction of high quality textured 3D models. Additional great success was the fact that the TRADR team was able to arrive and deploy at the location within 48 hours from receiving the request. The VVFF has expressed high appreciation to the TRADR project for the success of the mission and the smooth operation.
The main street of Amatrice after the earthquake, state on Friday Sep1 2016.
TRADR team in Amatrice (left-to-right): Erik Zimmermann; Wolfgang Rottner; Hartmut Surmann; Ivana Kruijff-Korbayová; Emanuele Gissi;VdF fire fighter; policeman Luigi Ugliano; Mario Gianni; Kneeling: Krešimir Dilic; Václav Hlaváč; Luigi Freda; Valsamis Ntouskos; Vladimír Kubelka.
Browsable versions of the 3D models of the interior and exterior of both San Francesco and Sant’Agostino churches generated from the data collected during the deployment in Amatrice can be accessed here.
The news of deployment was reported by Reuters, although without reference to the TRADR project. Many other media took this announcement and video over. In Germnay, for example: Frankfurter Allgemeine, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, n24, Die Zeit, Stern, MSN.
The euRathlon/TRADR Workshop and Summer School 2016 on Heterogeneity in Robotics Systems is designed as a five-day course to provide participants with both theoretical and practical insight in multi-domain real robotic systems for deployment in disaster response scenarios. The trend in this area is going towards multi-robot systems with different outfits, processing powers and operation spaces (ground, water, air) that shall be deployed over long periods and several sorties. This raises many challenges, including multi-modal heterogeneous mapping, semantic analysis and reasoning, (collaborative) planning under uncertainty. The summer school program will consist of lectures on these topics, and hands-on sessions during which the participants work on practical tasks using several robots with different sensory equipment. The intended audience is undergraduate students, Master students, PhD students, postdoc students, researchers from universities/organizations and engineers from industry companies around the world.
The summer school is jointly organised by EURATHLON and TRADR EU Horizon 2020 and FP7 projects, respectively.
Organisers
Juha Röning (University of Oulu, Finland)
Ivana Kruijff-Korbayová (DFKI, Germany)
Marta Palau Franco (UWE Bristol, UK)
Abel Gawel (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Renaud Dubé (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Summers school venue
Oulu, Finland, at the University of Oulu. www.oulu.fi
Pentti Kaiteran katu 1, 90014 Oulu, Finland.
Important dates
– Application deadline 31 May 2016
– Notification of acceptance: 3 June 2016
– Registration deadline: 15 June 2016
– Summer school kick-off: 22 August 2016
Submission guidelines
Applications should be submitted via email in PDF format to Prof Juha Röning (eurathlon@uwe.ac.uk). All applicants must provide a free format letter (max. 2 pages) describing their research. Papers/posters are not compulsory for attending the summer school, but participants who have submitted a paper will have priority over participants who haven not submitted one.
Registration fee with accommodation: 230€/person
Registration fee without accommodation: 60€/person
Students enrolled in EU Universities, EU Research Centres or EU Companies have the possibility of getting travel support.
Several members of the TRADR team participated as observers at the Exercise Unified Response in London, March 1-4.
It was a large scale training exercise taking place at several sites in and around London, involving about 70 agencies and disaster response teams not only from London Firebrigade, but also international help from Italy, Cyprus and Hungary. The exercise simulated a building collapse over the Waterloo underground station in central London. The scenario was built in a disused power station in Dartford, Kent. We got really good insight, especially at the various higher levels, what a response to such a serious incident involves. It was also extremely valuable to see such a complex scenario from close up and see the immense activity of the responders, the higher levels of tactical and strategic command and many of the other actors involved in the response.Last but not least, there were aspects of the evaluation worth taking inspiration from.
