Firemen may have some help from rescue robots in the near future. Rescue robots that are programmed to help evacuate people from a building on fire is what electrical engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are shooting for.
Researchers Ayanna Howard and Paul Robinette have created small and mobile robots that can alert emergency personnel about where injured or trapped people that are lying down in a burning building, The robots are currently too small to help carry out the human beings themselves, but that may change at a later date.
These robots could also act as moving exit signs to guide people through the smoke filled environment to the closest exits ensuring that you only go to a safe exit where the danger is low and the exit is unblocked.
They could be stored on-site and when needed receive instructions from a human operator in emergency crisis situations. Then they would move into rescuer mode hunting for people in the building who needed help.
Once they come across people requiring assistance they will switch to leader mode and move them to a location away from harm’s way. When a rescue robot finds an injured person they will send the location of the person to the emergency personnel and stay with the injured person till he or she can be rescued. As part of the project people’s reactions to evacuation robots are being tested.