The sentence in this article that caught my eye starts as follows. "When the robot finds a victim, the head can be detached......." I'm glad that was explained further! LOL.
Beth, those studies have been done and that's what Survivor Buddy is all about. The investigators studied things like robot "body language" and sounds, for example, which is one reason the GUI was designed with help from Pixar engineers. The studies were done in the context of what worked and didn't work in the wake of 9/11. And personally, I think BEAR is scary, not cute.
Humans being rescued by Firefighters in full turn-out gear is pretty scary. A Firefighter wearing a SCBA with a full mask, sounding like Darth Vader is enough to send kids and adults crawling into greater danger rather than risk being 'saved' by the creature from your nightmares. Using rescue robots for size-up, search and rescue if possible will greatly reduce the need to put human responders into unknown risk scenarios. Wounded soldiers would know ahead-of-time that their rescue may be from a robot and would be more likely to accept that help.
One solution is sedatives. they can be implimented in the form of vapor or gas in the event of a panicing victim. in cases of fire a sleeping victim might breath less and incur less damage to lungs. they will strugle less and the load will be safer to carry. Im sure other features can later be added to drive even through walls of fire. Temporary water spray to cool the victim and protect them as the robot drives through extreme environment, etc...
The other solution is a more stable robot to carry a shifting load and a better trained victim. In the case of a solder being evacuated all of a sudden a wounded soldier might still be able enough to provide suppresive fire to defend himself/herself and the robot.
The big question is would a human in a panic situation not panic further if a robot (even a cute one like Bear) rolled towards them to try to carry them down the stairs or out of a building. Your first instinct might be to run away from the robot given the turmoil that's engulfing you, creating more of a flight instinct. I'm wondering how much they can test for those scenarios without replicating the actual desperation of the scene. And if that were indeed the case, then how effective could the robots actually be in saving lives.
When we wrote about the BEAR a few years ago, plans were for it to be able to lift a 250-lb man and "carry him down a flight of stairs," but it wasn't yet able to do that. Now, I see it's up to 500 lbs.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
0 
