This book offers the definitive guide to the theory and practice of disaster robotics. It can serve as an introduction for researchers and technologists, a reference for emergency managers, and a textbook in field robotics. Written by a pioneering researcher in the field who has herself participated in fifteen deployments of robots in disaster response and recovery, the book covers theory and practice, the history of the field, and specific missions. After a broad overview of rescue robotics in the context of emergency informatics, the book provides a chronological summary and formal analysis of the thirty-four documented deployments of robots to disasters that include the 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and numerous mining accidents. It then examines disaster robotics in the typical robot modalities of ground, air, and marine, addressing such topics as robot types, missions and tasks, and selection heuristics for each modality. Finally, the book discusses types of fieldwork, providing practical advice on matters that include collecting data and collaborating with emergency professionals. The field of disaster robotics has lacked a comprehensive overview. This book by a leader in the field, offering a unique combination of the theoretical and the practical, fills the gap.

Disaster Robotics

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extract lessons learned from the Fukushima‐Daiichi accident, caused by a big earthquake and a huge tsunami, which occurred on 11 March 2011.Design/methodology/approach – Lessons learned are extracted after summarizing emergency response by robots to the Fukushima‐Daiichi accident.Findings – Many lessons had been learned from the experiences on robots' emergency response to the accident; organization and operation scheme, and systemization were major lessons learned.Practical implications – Unmanned constructive heavy machines and robots donated from the USA or imported from Sweden did reconnaissance work and cleaning up of rubble outside of buildings. Quince and JAEA‐3 were deployed for reconnaissance inside buildings.Social implications – The Japanese nuclear disaster response robotics developed after Japan Conversion Corporation's critical accident occurred in 1999, could not work when the Fukushima‐Daiichi accident occurred on 11 March 2011.Originality/value – ...

Emergency response by robots to Fukushima‐Daiichi accident: summary and lessons learned

A review of ground-based robotic systems for the characterization of nuclear environments

Smart cities essentially require the state-of-the-art technologies that can provide smart service in various aspects, and robotic systems are one of the key solutions for such requirements. Time is a critical issue when dealing with people who experience a sudden cardiac arrest that unfortunately could die due to inaccessibility of the emergency treatment. Therefore, an immediate treatment using automated external defibrillator (AED) must be administered to the victim within a few minutes after collapsing. Hence, we have designed and developed the ambulance robot, which brings along an AED in a sudden event of cardiac arrest and facilitates various modes of operation from manual to autonomous functioning to save someones lives in smart cities. The details of the design and development of such robot are presented in this paper.

Robotic Automated External Defibrillator Ambulance for Emergency Medical Service in Smart Cities

Chemical tools that can report radioactive isotopes would be of interest to the defense community. Here we report ∼250 nm polymeric nanoparticles containing porphyrinoid macrocycles with and without pre-complexed depleted uranium and demonstrate that the latter species may be detected easily and with high sensitivity via photoacoustic imaging. The porphyrinoid macrocycles used in the present study are non-aromatic in the absence of the uranyl cation, but aromatic after cation complexation. We solubilized both the freebase and metalated forms of the macrocycles in poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) and found a peak in the photoacoustic spectrum at 910 nm excitation in the case of the uranyl complex. The signal was stable for at least 15 minutes and allowed detection of uranium concentrations down to 6.2 ppb (5.7 nM) in vitro and 0.57 ppm (19 fCi; 0.52 μM) in vivo. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a nanoparticle that detects an actinide cation via photoacoustic imaging.

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Parts per billion detection of uranium with a porphyrinoid-containing nanoparticle and in vivo photoacoustic imaging

The authors developed a robotic control vehicle for measuring the radiation in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. There are a lot of hotspots in the nuclear power plant (over several tens mSv/h). Heavy radiation prevents humans from searching and reconstructing it. It is essential to measure the radiation to ensure worker safety. The developed robotic control vehicle can measure radiation using a γ-cam and TALON with a radiation sensor. A heavily shielded operation box was built for reducing the exposure of radiation to 1/3. Two operators control the TALON and the γ-cam from the shielded operation box. Because of its pinhole mechanism, the γ-cam needs to know the distance to the targets. The 3-D light detection and ranging (LIDAR) was built for distance measurement. It has wide measurement range of up to 20m. Using the 3-D LIDAR and the shielded operation box can reduce the exposure during radiation measurement. The use of the developed robotic control vehicle can realize safe radiation measurement.

Robotic control vehicle for measuring radiation in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a device and a method capable of simultaneously measuring a dose rate near the surface of the earth and a dose rate near height affecting a human body and capable of measuring a dose rate in space at essentially the same height even if a measurement point is changed.SOLUTION: A portable radiation measuring device includes: an equipment support rod; a grip for gripping the equipment support rod; a GPS receiver mounted to one end of the equipment support rod; a first radiation detector mounted to the equipment support rod at a position at a side opposite to the GPS receiver with respect to the grip; a second radiation detector mounted to the other end at a side opposite to the one end of the equipment support rod with a fixed space to the first radiation detector; and a communication control unit mounted to a side of the GPS receiver relative to the grip, namely a device that can switch measurement value signals of the first and/or second radiation detectors for displaying on the spot and transmits the simultaneous measurement value signals and a position signal from the GPS receiver in measurement to the outside.

Portable radiation measuring device and method of measuring radiation using the same

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method and apparatus for measuring radiation using laser, which allow for making quick realtime measurement that produces less radioactive waste and imposes less risk for operators to be contaminated with or exposed to radiation in an environment contaminated with radioactive substances.SOLUTION: A method of measuring radiation using laser involves identifying intensity and positions of radiation by irradiating a radiation-ionized gas generated by radiation in a measurement environment with an excited laser beam and measuring Raman-scattered light generated by the radiation-ionized gas, and uses radiation intensity measurement means that identifies radiation intensity in the measurement environment using a contrast reference between spectral intensity of the scattered light and elemental concentration, which is preset for each element.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Method and apparatus for measuring radiation using laser

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an apparatus for accurately preparing a gamma ray dose rate map for a vertical plane, such as timber or a side wall of a buildingSOLUTION: A Geiger-Muller tube is attached to a tip of a telescopic rod, to measure a gamma ray dose rate at a high place An infrared light emitting part is provided on the rod at substantially the same position as the GM tube for acquiring the position thereof An infrared camera and a visible-light camera are installed at positions separated from the position of the rod, to perform image processing on a video image obtained by the cameras The position of the infrared light emitting part and the dose rate at the position are superimposed and displayed on an object to be measured captured by the visible-light camera The above operation is repeated while sequentially changing the positions, to display a dose rate distribution of the building side wall or the like on a visible-light picture of the building wall surface, for example

Takashi Okada

Papers

Emergency response by robots to Fukushima‐Daiichi accident: summary and lessons learned

Robotic control vehicle for measuring radiation in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Portable radiation measuring device and method of measuring radiation using the same

Method and apparatus for measuring radiation using laser

Vertical plane dose rate map preparation device