Category: ‘Events’

Excellent final review of TRADR

23 March, 2018 Posted by tradr_admin

The FP7 TRADR project held its final review meeting at an industrial site in Mestre, Italy, under the great hospitality of the Comando Provinciale Venezia Vigili del Fuoco on 21-22 March 2018. The review was attended by the EC Project Officer, three external reviewers and representatives from all the eleven partners of the TRADR consortium. More than 30 members of the large TRADR team participated to the meeting and contributed to the success of the project.

The very tight agenda contained presentations of the scientific results/achievements and three integrated demonstration sessions in which the functionalities of the TRADR integrated system were showcased in action operated by firefighters in an industrial-incident response mission (this video gives an impression of the demonstration scenario).

The reviewers and the project officer gave overwhelmingly positive final feedback on the excellent S&T progress achieved in the project and its impact. They praised the close collaboration with the end users and their active involvement and contributions throughout the project. The TRADR consortium in its turn was grateful for the constructive feedback it had been receiving from the reviewers and the support from the Project Officer.

 

Big thanks to everyone who has contributed

to the success and excellence of the TRADR project!!!

 

End-User Symposium in Mestre, Italy

23 March, 2018 Posted by tradr_admin

The End-User Symposium organized by the Italian firefighters (Vigili del Fuoco) took place on March 23 in Mestre, Italy.

The program consisted of presentations on  drone-related activities and Applied Topographic techniques to Rescue activities (TAS).

 

Program:

Robotics and other technologies used in Disaster Response

TRADR develops technology for human-robot teams to assist in disaster response efforts, using ground and air robots, in realistic missions spanning multiple days. We address a range of issues, from motion, navigation and mapping in complex changing environments, to human-robot team mission management support. End-users, first responders from the Italian Fire Corp, the Fire Department of the City of Dortmund in Germany and Gezamenlijke Brandweer in the Netherlands, are involved in the TRADR development cycle, from design to prototype testing. They provide input and feedback, experience the technology and become aware of its potential and current limitations, to in the end facilitate its uptake.

Venue: Comando Provinciale Vigili del Fuoco, Strada della Motorizzazione Civile 6, 30174 Mestre Venice, Italy

09:30 – 09.45     Welcome

Fabio DATTILO, CNVVF, Director of the Veneto Region, Italy
Ennio AQUILINO, CNVVF, Local Commander of Venice, Italy

09:45 – 10.05     National Italian Fire Corps Organization – CNVVF and typical aspects of rescue in the venetian territory
Francesco PILO, Lieutenant Colonel, Comando Provinciale Vigili del Fuoco Venezia, CNVVF, Italy

10:05 – 10:30     Using Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems – RPAS in rescue operations of Italian National Fire Corps
Onofrio LORUSSO, Lieutenant Colonel, CNVVF, Air Rescue Coordination Office, Italy

10:30 – 10:55     Applied Topographic techniques to Rescue activities (TAS)
Alessandra BASCIÀ, Lieutenant Colonel, Comando Provinciale Vigili del Fuoco Venezia, CNVVF, Italy

10:55 – 11:10    Coffee break

11:10 – 11:30     Management of large scale events at the Fire Department of Dortmund
Sylvia PRATZLER, Principal Engineer, Feuerwehr Dortmund, Germany

11:30 – 11:50     Unified Fire Department, Rotterdam Port Area
Dominic VAN DE VELDE, Gezamenlijke Brandweer, Rottardam Netherlands

11:50 – 12:10    TRADR project
Ivana KRUIJFF-KORBAYOVÁ, Senior Researcher, DFKI, Germany

12:10 – 13:00    Discussion

13:00-14:00       Lunch

14:00                      End of the day

Workshop on sharing data & other resources for emergency response robotics at ERF

4 March, 2018 Posted by tradr_admin

The premise of the workshop is that there still remains a gap between results obtained in development conditions (by both research and industry) and making the technology truly effective in real environments, addressing the real needs of responders in emergency situations. The goal of the workshop is to discuss measures that will help to bridge the gap, and how to implement them with the engagement of academia, industry and end users. Data sharing can be considered as one such measure. The workshop scope includes also sharing other resources and any other relevant measures that can help improve robot-assisted emergency response capability in Europe.

The Workshop on sharing data and other resources for emergency response robotics will take place

on March 15, 8:30-10:00

during the European Robotics Forum.

Organizers:
Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova, German Institute for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Germany
Hartmut Surmann, Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS, Germany

Read more.

 

TRADR makes the human-robot interaction community aware of long-term human-robot teaming

27 February, 2018 Posted by tradr_admin

The workshop “Longitudinal Human-Robot Teaming” organized by the TRADR project as part of the annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction in Chicago, USA, on March 5 was a great success, attended by more than 40 participants from a broad range of HRI sub-disciplines. The workshop was opened by Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova’s presentation on human-robot teaming from a micro- and macro-perspective as experienced in the TRADR project. This perspective was complemented by the keynote lecture of the world-leading expert on robot-assisted disaster response, Robin Murphy, who advocated an ecological approach to longitudinal human-robot teaming. Contributions from the workshop participants addressed a broad range of topics, reflecting the complexity of this exciting area of research, and raising many open questions for discussion. Several of the participants expressed that the workshop call for papers inspired them to consider the long-term interaction aspects of their ongoing research, and brought exciting new research questions to their attention. There was general consensus that it would be worthwhile to hold a workshop on this topics again in the near future.
More details and program: http://bradhayes.info/hri18/

TRADR Technology Day 2017 in Rotterdam

17 November, 2017 Posted by tradr_admin

More than 60 guests from the Netherlands and abroad gathered on the premises of the RDM Congress Center in Rotterdam on November 17 2017 for the TRADR Technology Day. Most of them represented various Firebrigade organizations, several came from robotics companies and some from universities and research institutes. The program of the day consisted of presentations, discussions, a poster session and demonstrations of the TRADR integrated system.

In the introduction about the TRADR project the coordinator Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova explained the TRADR goals, approach and outcomes. She stressed the importance of the close collaboration between researchers and end users in TRADR, which has also enabled the project to deploy its technology in a real disaster response after the earthquake in Amatrice, Italy in 2016.  Presentation

 

Martijn Zagwijn, information management specialist of Firebrigade Twente introduced the drone project he is leading. The drone project provides disaster management support and has been in operation since January 1 2016 after two years of preparations, needed to comply with all regulations. Currently it is being extended to a nation-wide project. Presentation

 

Hauke Speth, head of the Training Department and Institute for Fire and Rescue Technology at City of Dortmund Fire Department reviewed the experiences of the Dortmund Firebrigage with the use of robots in the research projects ANCHORS and TRADR and the ensuing inclusion of a drone as part of their regular incident response capability. He stressed that it is essential that operators be used to deploy the systems in everyday practice, and underlined the importance of collaboration between research, industry and end users in order to advance the use of robots for disaster response. Presentation

During the poster session the TRADR project partners presented their results in a broad range of areas:  learning for exploration, detection and 3D mapping; learning and modelling for terrain perception and robot control; perception and control for manoeuvring and manipulation; multi-robot localisation and change detection; multi-robot autonomous patrolling and exploration; 3D mapping for UAVs; human-robot teamwork modelling; enhancing human-robot team performance with work agreements;  team communication processing; user strategy for tactical command.

The TRADR integrated system was presented in action in a simulated incident response mission enacted at the Deltalinqs training plant. End users from the Gezaamenlijke Brandweer controlled the TRADR ground robots to explore the incident area, locate victims, identify hazard sources and collect samples. The guests could observe the mission progress in the TRADR command post, where they could see how TRADR supports  situation awareness of the team,  and in the field, where they obtained explanations about the robot capabilities, including mapping, autonomous terrain traversal, guided manipulation and multi-robot patrolling and exploration. Since the regulations did not allow the team to fly the TRADR UAVs, the capabilities for UAV 3D mapping and data collection were explained using video material.

During the discussion sessions the participants exchanged experience and opinions about the current and future use of robots in incident response, the obstacles that block robot use and how to overcome them. The representatives of the Dutch Firebrigade organizations used the opportunity to discuss how to synchronize their efforts at the national level.

 

The TRADR Technology Day provided an opportunity for fruitful discussions and establishing new contacts.
We hope that it has made a useful contribution to the future of robot-assisted disaster response. A video from the event can be found here.

 

The event was part of the European Robotics Week 2017. Tweet about the event #ERW2017.