Highlights in Science, Engineering and Technology MSMEE 2023

Volume 43 (2023)

Robotics Applications in Natural Hazards

Minhao Wu *
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los
Angeles, United States
* Corresponding author: minhaowu10@g.ucla.edu
Abstract. Natural hazards not only have great contribution to fatality but also economic loss.
Although government has proposed well developed polices to rapidly handle emergencies and
systematically organized recovery actions, failures of emergency relief, such as ineffective rescue,
can significantly increase the post-hazard death rate. With the advance of artificial intelligence, the
use of robots for disaster management applications is a new trend in managing and accessing
natural disasters. Disaster response robotics is capable of assisting and replacing rescue teams
working in dangerous scenarios, which not only alleviates labor-intensity but also reduces the
potential risks associated with rescue personnel. Research on construction automation has
advanced, but extensive development is required to reach fully autonomous construction in disaster
management and post-disaster recovery. Instead, human robotics collaboration is promising and
able to effectively alleviate the knowledge deficit and confusion. In the article, different functions of
disaster response robotics are introduced, and technical challenges and future improvements are
described.
Keywords: Robotics, Natural hazards, Disaster recovery.

1. Introduction
Earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, and other unpredictable crises frequently occur in
societies, which result in significant deaths, injuries, and property damage, thus making their
management imperative. According to the research, natural disasters globally kill on average 45,000
people per year [1]. Victims’ total injuries due to natural hazards can be classified into two categories,
direct injury (direct, unavoidable, negative impact of natural disasters on the human) and indirect
injury (improper actions result in avoidable injury). For example, in the case of earthquakes, direct
injury is an unavoidable injury caused by primary earthquakes and aftershocks, and the indirect injury
occurs when the rescue team perform improper rescue actions, resulting in secondary collapse of
buildings or doesn’t response timely, causing injuries that could have been avoided after the
earthquake events [2]. Additionally, inefficient institutions, poor infrastructure, and scarcity of
resources make developing economies more vulnerable [3]. The people who have worked 48 to 72
hours straight in relief work have often risked personal injury and suffering in order to save lives [4].
Therefore, to avoid indirect injury and reduce the potential risks for rescue personnel to work in
dangerous situations, robotics is used as a rapid and effective tool to assist human work and replace
real human actions in extreme conditions.
In the aftermath of a disaster, the response must be swift enough to reach all possible survivors,
yet slow enough to prevent additional collapses, damage, danger to rescuers, and contention over
airspace. In order to save lives, robots can either interact directly with victims or structures or
automate support activities [5]. This paper aims to review the current robotic technologies appropriate
for disaster response and recovery and suggests strategies from a robotics perspective that would
enhance disaster response and recovery. The article is organized as follows: an overview of the latest
developments in robotic applications in natural hazards is presented in Section 2, and Section 3
summarizes the findings and discusses future research.

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2. Robotics in Disaster Management

A disaster is a situation that puts human life at risk. The deployment of robotics in natural disaster
management has been on the rise for the past few years. Rescue and recovery tasks performed by
robots can be divided into three categories: 1. Surveying and Mapping the environment. 2. Searching
and Rescue disaster victims 3. Reconstruction [6]. In this section, disaster response robots are
introduced in different scenarios:
2.1. Surveying and Mapping
In order to support humanitarian efforts, georeferenced data associated with affected areas can be
produced by early impact analysis after a disaster. Images from satellites are mainly used to analyze
early impacts on medium and large-scale maps and high-resolution satellite images are utilized to
analyze damage to infrastructure and facilities [7]. With centimeter-scale spatial resolution as well as
the ability to deploy rapidly and repeatedly, UAV, as a relatively inexpensive tool, which can access
otherwise inaccessible areas in a safe manner, are widely used for surveying. UAV surveying has
been applied in multiple real disaster cases including:
1) Hurricanes: High resolution aerial images are acquired by UAV from different Hurricane
Maria-affected key sites in Dominica in order to generate a digital surface model (DSM) and
orthophotographs for quantitative analysis of hurricane impacts [8]. In order to evaluate the effect of
Hurricane Harvey on upper Texas coastal areas, topographic data is collected from UAV for
comparison between single-year or multi-year beach dune studies at a centimeter-level spatial
resolution [9]. UAV-based preliminary assessment is conducted in order to evaluate mangrove
damage caused by Cyclone Yolanda and monitoring post-hazard recovery [10].
2) Earthquakes: Road monitoring and secondary disaster investigation are conducted by routinely
manipulating UAV after Wenchuan Earthquake in China [11]. Integration of terrestrial laser scanners
and UAV photogrammetry data is used to build 3D modeling of damaged buildings in hazard affected
communities in Greece and Italy [12, 13]. Earthquake-induced landslides are mapped based on UAV
imagery in Greece [14].
3) Flooding: UAV are used for acquiring accurate and up-to-date spatial information on river
environments, as well as monitoring fluvial processes in Poland [15]. In Transylvania, a UAV was
used to delimit flood-prone areas in the north-east of the Apuseni Mountains [16]. To assist in
monitoring during critical events such as heavy rains or flooding, UAVs are used to map rivers and
estuaries [17].
Researchers are increasingly implementing UAVs in managing critical situations, and disaster
management use UAVs for monitoring and surveillance. Photogrammetry technology of UAVs has
proven to be very useful and efficient in decision making when a disaster occurred by discovering
surface deformation. The important role of UAVs in the early warning is monitoring forecasts and
gathering information before a disaster occurs, which significantly reduces potential risk and loss.
2.2. Rescue
Robotic disaster rescue systems are designed to prevent the spread of disaster damage in an
emergency situation, including search and rescue operations as well as recovery activities [18]. For
victims who cannot be reached easily, rescue robots can help locate, assess, stabilize, and extricate
them. Various rescue robotics have been used in different cases, which can be classified into two
categories:
1) Unmanned Ground Vehicles
Small unmanned ground vehicles (SUGVs) can be used to locate trapped victims in tight or
dangerous spaces that humans and dogs cannot access [5]. Thermal image and computer vision
algorithms are widely used in survivor detection. An infrared vision-based robotic survivor detection
system has been proposed and validated in an inactive underground space in Poland. Collaborated
with infrared thermography and RGB-D camera, this system consists of an unmanned ground vehicles

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equipped with sensors and an image processing module that are based on adaptations of the algorithm
You Only Look Once (YOLO) and the algorithm Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG), which
can be used to verify the presence of humans [19]. A snake-like robot is developed to interact with
humans and perform rescue tasks in narrow spaces. It consists of a five-fingered anthropomorphic
robotic hand that is capable of grasping and manipulating a variety of objects [20]. Large unmanned
ground vehicles (LUGVs) are intended to be mobile base stations, such as transporting injured victims
and serving as a platform for small UGVs [21]. LUGVs should also be equipped with powerful
manipulators to perform heavy duties, such as excavating and clearing debris [22]. When disasters
strike, public communication infrastructure is particularly damaged, hindering search and rescue
operations, and reestablishing functioning communication infrastructure is time consuming.
Therefore, it is possible to use LUGVs to provide an adaptable and reliable emergency
communication backbone, as well as to provide a wide range of sensing capabilities, which enables
them to send data to field operators, increasing their situational awareness, while meeting the
requirement of traversing rough terrain [23].
2) Unmanned Underwater Vehicles
Unmanned underwater robots can alleviate rescue delays and provide useful equipment for
underwater research in areas affected by flooding or tsunamis [24]. The most common submarine
rescue problems are: (i) being trapped in a confined space in the deep ocean (ii) losing communication
between the submarine and base station [25]. Various types of UUVs have been applied in real
situations. An octopus-like robot (OIR) is used for surveillance operations to investigate the
underwater environment under control and capture some objects in the military [26]. After the 2011
Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, the Anchor Diver III robot was applied to perform search and rescue
operations in Japan equipped with a high-resolution camera and a two-dimensional sonar [27]. A
UUV equipped with a sonar, camera and powerful manipulator which can be remotely controlled by
crews via tethers while searching for victims or conducting heavy duties was used after the Greater
Eastern Earthquake in Japan. To alleviate the potential malfunction of a single UUV during the
rescuing work, Multi-UUVs system is proposed by using an efficient Reward acting on
Reinforcement Learning and Particle Swarm Optimization (R-RLPSO) and has been validated in 3D
underwater environments [28]. There are also many researchers who investigate the communication
between underwater operations and base stations [29]. PSK modulation technique was found to allow
communication between two peers in deep water at 500 kbps over a distance of 60 meters. However,
several challenges associated with underwater networking, such as power limitations, limited
bandwidth, fading, high propagation delay, and bit error rates and safety issues [30]. To remove these
limitations, the integration of unmanned aerial-aquatic vehicle (UAAVs) and UUV is capable of
searching underwater targets from the air and sending the information to AUVs after they dive into
water, which will improve work efficiency and ensure vehicle safety [31].
During disaster recovery operations, rescue robots play a crucial role. A rescue robot is a powerful
tool for searching for survivors during and after a disaster, providing first aid treatment to survivors,
and informing the rescue team about environmental conditions and possible survivors, which greatly
enhances the ability to carry out rescue operations.
2.3. Reconstruction
Reconstruction after a natural hazard is crucial to reestablishing socioeconomic growth. It has been
found, however, that the reconstruction process is often slow and lacks efficiency due to the safety
issue and dangerous situation in post-disaster recovery, as well as cleaning up debris requires a long
time [32]. Due to the advancement in construction automation, the industry has invested in the
automation of conventional earthmoving equipment and the adoption of prefabrication in order to
reduce the amount of onsite labor [33]. As a result of the use of robotics in the construction industry,
productivity is expected to increase, labor shortages will be eliminated, and safety risks will be
reduced, particularly during the recovery process after a disaster [34]. To reduce potential secondary
injury during post-disaster reconstruction, telemanipulation robots are widely used. Various

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teleoperated excavators was developed by using the master-slave system to operate in high-risk areas.
A master-slave system is a system where the master works remotely and directly control slave systems
by sending commands. With the advancement of robotics, in order to alleviate potential human
fatigues and risks, a humanoid robot or a subordinate system is capable of replacing real human acting
on behalf of human operators to command the excavators or slaves, by receiving commands from the
operator or master [35]. Teleoperated construction robots have been applied in many real post-disaster
recoveries. A construction machinery with a dual-arm, double front design has been introduced in
Japan, which features two six-degrees-of-freedom manipulators with a grasping mechanism which
consists of five single-rod hydraulic cylinders and a hydraulic motor [36]. In order to improve the
grasping motion of soft objects, a force feedback joystick operated by a grapple-attached excavator
was developed to improve the grasping motion through force feedback application [37]. Teleoperated
electrohydraulic actuators equipped with radio-controlled transmitters and receivers have been
employed by construction vehicles in Malaysia. A 24 VDC electrohydraulic valve coupled with a tie-
rod cylinder was used to develop the telerobotic platform [38]. In order to pump and place concrete
into the formwork, vehicle-mounted manipulators with concrete pumps are used, such as the robotic
system developed by Tunconstruct. Due to reactive pump control features and semi-autonomous
boom control, these manipulators are easy to handle, which minimizes the potential for mistakes [39].
In addition to providing a highly controlled fabrication environment, robotic arm based modular
construction eliminates transportation costs associated with workers and equipment to the job site and
increases overall productivity as the site is not affected by post-disaster conditions. The equipment
can be installed permanently for mass production, thereby increasing efficiency over the
reconstruction process on site [40].

3. Conclusion
As science and technology evolve, human minds and behaviors change much faster than social
adaptation. It is necessary for all stakeholders to work together to solve social, industrial, and
technical issues in order to implement disaster robotics. It has been demonstrated that current robotic
systems are capable of being applied to disaster relief operations. However, it remains challenging to
overcome engineering challenges. Due to the high complexity of the post-disaster environment,
robots are unreliable to be used extensively because of their inflexibility and adaptiveness, especially
for rescue. For example, buildings can be damaged and collapsed by earthquake ground shaking as
well as can sink into the ground if soil liquefaction occurs. Large earthquakes sometimes result in
flooding and tsunami, which produces landslide dams. Victims are also possible to be buried under
ruins surrounded by flooded areas. It is not intelligent enough for current robots with sole function or
without adaptations to various environments to execute tasks with full automation in these situations.
Human intervention is still required. Although the success of teleoperated heavy-duty construction
machines in disaster recovery operations, wireless communications remain a challenge. Existing
robots have difficulty establishing reliable communication to the base station over long distances,
which makes them inefficient at fulfilling their tasks. Despite studies that have been conducted on 3D
mapping of job sites, there remain questions as to whether such a method will address cognitive
overload caused by excessive information provided to operators and the latency issue resulting from
teleoperating excavators. Furthermore, since robots rely on batteries, their deployment is also severely
restricted by the type and capacity of their batteries. Consequently, future studies should confirm
whether the 3D mapping is feasible for teleoperating excavators on sites. The hybrid system is
promising, such as hybrid of UAV and UGV systems or collaboration among multiple UGV systems.
Combining human supervision with robot intelligence is crucial for disaster robot usability with
current robotic technologies. Instead of achieving full automation, human-robot interaction (HRI)
allows off‐site operators to control robots and gain situational awareness through a video stream or
other sensory data, which is essential for heterogeneous solution to cover disaster areas. For example,
electroencephalogram (EEG) has been successfully proved to be useful as input data for brain-

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machine interface. The brain-machine interface can be remotely controlled by different features of
worker’s brainwaves obtained by a wearable sensor. Robots can then be modified to meet workers'
needs at the job site, improving safety and productivity. In order to conduct more in-depth studies in
the future, it is necessary to consider the risks, the difficulties, and the different levels of time pressure
of the task. To succeed in critical zones, rescue robots must be more advanced, intelligent, and have
robust and reliable hardware in order to deal with any obstacle that may arise.

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