technology
Experts test high-tech for earthquake rescue
An employee of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief controls a drone on a training ground in Wesel. photo
©Oliver Berg/dpa
Robots and drones are helping to save lives in a THW project: equipped with cameras, microphones and loudspeakers, they roll into collapsed houses in search of survivors.
After three and a half years of development work, experts presented modern technologies for rescuing earthquake victims and buried people in Wesel on the Lower Rhine on Tuesday. The Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) is a project partner and coordinator of the EU research project Cursor, in which 17 organizations from eight countries are involved.
The focus is on small, remote-controlled ground robots on wheels that can roll into collapsed houses. The robots were equipped with infrared and thermal cameras, loudspeakers and microphones so that dispatchers can contact those who have been buried. They also sucked air from the accident site through a thin tube, analyzed it for CO2 emissions and human-typical proteins and could thus localize people, said THW project coordinator Tiina Ristmäe. “In this way we can see whether there are people in the place and whether they are still alive.”
“If we already had that in Turkey, it would help to track people down more quickly and maybe even save lives,” said Petra Roith, spokeswoman for the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW). But the devices are still prototypes. It will probably take years before it is ready for series production.
During the long-planned presentation on a THW site in Wesel, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 was simulated. In the test arrangement, two buried subjects were placed on the THW site in a largely destroyed three-storey building. A fleet of a large surveillance drone and smaller missiles flew over the scene, providing the commander with 3D views of the scene on screen.
EU project cursor