Search and Rescue Robots Successful in Trials

Deep Robotics announced the successful trial of five autonomous quadruped robots in simulated search-and-rescue missions. 

In the trials, the company used a team of five of its Jueying X20 robots in eight different searches across an unknown environment of 3,000 square meters. 

The successful results are hoped to pave the way for the use of autonomous robots for search and inspection missions across industries and scenarios, such as in the aftermath of natural disasters. 

"Teams working on emergency searches or for site exploration commonly face challenges such as insufficient site data and risks to their personal safety,” said Wei Tang, Deep Robotics head of algorithm engineering. “That's where these robots can provide valuable assistance. The robots share the simplest and most useful information, which can reduce bandwidth communication costs while improving functionality, leading to better outcomes."

In the trials, the robots were tasked to retrieve inflammable and explosive items, as well as rescue injured people. Each was fitted with a high-resolution camera, as well as a lidar and mesh network to aid their autonomous navigation of the space.

The robots coordinated with one another to evenly cover the area in question, and complete the task at hand, using Deep Robotics’ algorithm for autonomous coordinated multi-robot exploration to achieve this. 

"The success of this trial paves the way for the future adoption of quadrupedal robots in difficult and high-risk environments, supporting or replacing humans in doing life-threatening tasks, while increasing the speed and accuracy during emergency rescue operations,” said Tang.

The X20 is the latest edition of Deep Robotics’ Jueying series, which was first deployed in 2021 for industrial use cases such as power inspections, emergency rescues, public safety inspections, tunnel, mining and industrial site inspections, and construction site exploration.