Robot snakes searched for Venezuela earthquake survivors in collapsed buildings

Robots slithered like snakes into the rubble of collapsed buildings to search for trapped survivors in the aftermath of Venezuela’s double earthquake disaster. The so-called snake robots represented a unique technological aid for international search and rescue efforts following two earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24, killing more than 5,000 people and leaving behind 16,740 injured. Rescuers from around the world used trained dogs, seismic and acoustic listening devices, video cameras on sticks, or thermal imaging cameras to search for signs of survivors—but the snakebots equipped with a video camera could squeeze through tight spaces to search deep within fallen building debris.

“The reason why snake robots are useful is they can get into tightly packed volumes that machinery and people otherwise cannot, and that's important in search and rescue because we were able to extend the visual reach of the rescue workers in a safe way, Howie Choset, head of the Biorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, told Ars. “In a sense, you're doing minimally invasive surgery on a structure with a snake robot. Read full article Comments US robotics researchers flew to Venezuela with snakebots after getting a call.

Each 4-foot-long snakebot is modular in design with individual body segments that can be swapped out and easily replaced or upgraded. A human operator directs the robot using a video game controller and a control case laptop tethered to the robot, but software algorithms allow the robot to autonomously coordinate the body segments for the appropriate body movements when being directed to travel from point A to B. Choset and his colleagues have spent nearly two decades developing different versions of the snake robots that can explore archaeological sites, swim underwater and even assist with minimally invasive surgery. But they first put the snake robot to the test in search and rescue scenarios following an earthquake that struck Mexico City on September 19, 2017, when they helped search a collapsed apartment building.

That first snake robot deployment caught the attention of Beatriz Gonzalez, a native Venezuelan living in Atlanta, when she asked the AI chatbot Grok for ways to help search and rescue operations in Venezuela following the earthquakes, according to The Tribune-Review. Grok referred her to a Carnegie Mellon University article about the 2017 operation in Mexico City. Gonzalez called Choset’s lab.

The robotics researchers were eager to help and eventually confirmed they would go while onstage preparing to demonstrate their robots during a concert celebrating America’s 250th anniversary at Pittsburgh’s Point State Park on June 27. “We were on between Third Eye Blind and Nelly the rapper, Choset said. That decision led to frenzied overnight packing and work to prepare the robots for the work that lay ahead. The researchers had to replace head-mounted cameras on several robots to ensure they were working properly, and they packed extra batteries for the control case that also serves as the robot’s power supply.

Within 24 hours, they were flying to Miami with three snake robots in tow on their way to Venezuela. The stopover in Miami on June 28 took slightly longer than expected because the team scrambled to find a private jet owner willing to take them to Venezuela. A few jet owners backed out because of restrictions imposed by the Venezuelan government.

But Gonzalez assisted the team by using her connections, and they eventually got a flight. Once the plane landed in Venezuela on June 30, the team was greeted by US Marines before being handed over to the Venezuelan Red Cross to make their way to the hard-hit city of La Guaira in the northern part of the country.”””