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Disaster Robot
14 Sep 2018

Video: After Disaster Strikes, Robots come to the Rescue

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When a natural disaster or a any other disaster strikes, it’s engineer Robin Murphy who comes to the rescue. Or rather, it’s Robin and her army of robots.

Robin Murphy is the director of Texas A&M’s Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue, and one of the leading pioneers in using robots to help communities during search and rescue operations.

Her work with robotics was sparked after the 1995 Oklahoma bombing event, when one of her grad students came up with the idea of using robots to assist in the search & rescue.

The first time rescue robots were used was in the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York, in order to reach deeper into the rubble where people or dogs cannot go. 

Every year, over one million lives are claimed by natural disasters. Countless others are displaced, and communities take decades to fully recover. With her robots, Robin is helping these communities get back on their feet.

In this video, she explains her work with Disaster Robots within USAR and other rescue work.

This video is from Great Big Stories, as a part of their Frontiers series, where they bring  front and center to the dreamers, pioneers, and innovators leading society at the cutting edge.