The 1995 Kobe earthquake was one of the most devastating natural disasters in the history of Japan . With an estimated of 2,300,000 people affected by the quake and 10 trillion yen direct damage costs, the event caused major infrastructure problems to Japan and even affected worldwide shipping. However, what mostly shocked disaster relief experts around the world was the loss of so many lives and properties in Japan , which is considered to be one of the most prepared countries in the world for dealing with natural disasters. This event, along with Japan 's preponderance of natural disasters has caused a rethinking and urgency among Japanese government officials for developing new techniques and equipment to aid in rescue relief efforts. In addition, the recent terrorist incidents in the U.S. , Bali , Indonesia , and also in Iran (Bam earthquake) have underscored the importance of such developments. For example: As the collapse of the WTC towers tragically demonstrated, rescue work is extremely dangerous. After the Mexico City earthquake, 135 rescuers died during rescue attempts .

As we know, Iran has been placed on earthquake belt. This means, the probability of happening earthquake in our country is relatively higher than the many other countries. During the past decades we have seen many earthquakes in Iran and some of them were very dangerous and disastrous. Recently, Earthquake in Kerman province (Bam city) killed many innocent people (more than 40000).

Regarding to this important issue, preparing robots for rescue mission in disaster area in short time is inevitable; because human rescuers have very short time (about 48 hours) to find trapped victims in a collapsed structure; otherwise the chance of finding victims still alive is nearly zero. In such a critical situation technology can make a great help for rescuers. Intelligent mobile robots and cooperative multi-agent robotic systems can be very efficient tools to speed up search and rescue operations. Rescue robots are also useful to do rescuing jobs in situations that are hazardous for human rescuers. They can enter gaps and move trough small holes that are impossible for humans and even trained dogs. Robots should explore in collapsed structure, extract the map, search for victims and report the location of victims in map and the way that rescue team can reach him/her. It can also place a small package containing food, drugs and a communication device near the victim.

Fig1. The disaster after Bam earthquake

 

So the rescue robots for reaching to the above goals should have the following features and capabilities:

• autonomously navigate through collapsed structures

• find victims and ascertain their condition

• produce practical maps of their locations

• deliver real-time communications

• identify hazards

...allowing human rescuers to quickly locate and extract victims