Category: ‘Events’

Fourth TRADR Evaluation Exercise

12 November, 2017 Posted by tradr_admin

This year the last TRADR Evaluation exercise (T-Eval) took place in the port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, from 13 to 16 November 2017. The location was the Deltalinqs training facility, which offers and industrial setting consisting of a maze of pipes, containers, barriers and tanks, thus providing a realistic backdrop for the TRADR scenario.

During the exercise members of the Rotterdam Harbor United Firefighters (the TRADR end-users) used the TRADR system to execute a disaster response mission. Mission objectives included the creation of maps enabling autonomous UGV navigation, multi-robot patrolling and searching for Points of Interest, such as victims, fire, smoke and chemical leakage. Additionally, the robot arm was used to retrieve samples from the hot-zone. Due to improvements of the TRADR system in terms of stability, along with various new and improved functionalities, the firefighters were able to run a large number of sorties as part of the mission. As such the last evaluation exercise was concluded successfully.

 

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TRADR Technology Day 2017, November 17th, at RDM Congrescentrum Rotterdam in the Netherlands

26 October, 2017 Posted by tradr_admin

Saarbrücken, 6th October 2017

Dear Sir or Madam,

On behalf of the consortium of the European project TRADR (Long-Term Human-Robot Teaming for Robot Assisted Disaster Response) we are pleased to invite you to participate in the Robot-Assisted Disaster Response Technology Day organized by the Gezamenlijke Brandweer, Netherlands.

The TRADR Technology Day is part of the European Robotics Week.

Date:            17. November 2017

Time:            10:00 to 16:00 (arrival and registration from 9:30)

Venue:         Congrescentrum, Heijplaatstraat 17-23, 3089 JB Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Topics:         Robotics and AI technology use in disaster response: research, system development and practical experience

Real disaster response is time-critical and extremely stressful: the use of robots functioning as proper team members has the potential to reduce the workload and the stress of the humans and to take over dangerous tasks.

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 Firecorps, the Firebrigade 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.

During the Technology Day we will show our achievements and share insights gained during the 4 years of the project, including experience from the TRADR deployment in Amatrice, Italy, shortly after the earthquake in 2016, as well as the industrial use case experiments carried out in 2016 in Dortmund and in 2017 in Rotterdam. The program will consist of presentations and posters on TRADR scientific results and practical experience with the use of robots, a demonstration of the TRADR integrated system and panel discussion. The Technology Day is intended for a broad range of stakeholders including industry, end users from firebrigades and other responders, academia as well as interested general public.

To register for the event and for more information please click here.
Please register online at your earliest convenience as we will close registration upon reaching our maximum capacity.
The participation is free of charge.

Accommodation: We recommend the Hotel Bastion Rotterdam Zuid that is located near the venue.

Location: googlemaps:

Public transportation: please see here.

If you have other questions, please send an email to: technologyday@dfki.de

Thank you for your interest and looking forward to welcoming you on November 17th.

Dr. Ivana Kruijff-Korbayová
TRADR Project Coordinator

 

 

 

 

 

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TRADR demonstration for general public at the European Robotics League Emergency competition

15 September, 2017 Posted by tradr_admin

A presentation of the TRADR project and a life demonstration of the TRADR system took place as part of the Public Program accompanying the European Robotics League – Emergency competition taking place on September 15-23 2017 in Piombino, Italy. The ERL Emergency is a civilian, outdoor robotics competition, with a focus on realistic, multi-domain emergency response scenarios. Inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident, the ERL Emergency Grand Challenge can only be overcome when land, underwater and flying robots successfully cooperate. A public event late night on Sunday September 17 featured three EU-funded projects in the area of emergency response: Walk-Man, Sherpa and TRADR. The TRADR coordinator Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova (DFKI MLT) together with Emanuele Gissi, a Fire Officer of the Italian Firecorps (Vigili del Fuoco) delivered a presentation about the scientific results of TRADR and the TRADR deployment in Amatrice after the devastating earthquake of August 2016. Luigi Freda (La Sapienza University, Rome) demonstrated two TRADR ground robots in action in autonomous multi-robot patrolling. The event was attended among others by Mady Delvaux, Member of the European Parliament,   Anne Bajart from the EC,   Alan Winfield from University of the West of England and the ERL Emergency Coordinator, Reinhard Lafrenz, Secretary General of euRobotics AISBL. The TRADR presentation and demonstration were a great success that draw the attention of a big audience despite the late night hour.

 

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TRADR SIKS Summerschool 2017, August 21-25 in Utrecht, The Netherlands

21 August, 2017 Posted by tradr_admin

 

An international group of students, postdocs and researchers with interest in the topic of human-robot teaming met in Utrecht on August 21-25 to attend the TRADR/SIKS summer school (https://sites.google.com/view/tradr/home).

The 5-day course covered aspects of teaming and collaboration between humans and robots in multiple domains.

 

Ivana Kruijff-Korbayová (DFKI)

 

 

and Robin Murphy (Texas A&M University)

 

addressed the use of robots in disaster response missions.  Matt Johnson (Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition) presented Coactive Design and interdependence analysis, which help designers understand the impact of design choices on overall system performance when designing advanced and sophisticated human-machine systems. In a similar vein, Mark Neerincx (TNO) presented the situated Cognitive Engineering (sCE) methodology, which provides the ingredients for a systematic integration of human factors into an incremental and iterative development process. David Abbink (Delft University of Technology) shared insights in control using physical interaction through forces, applied in successful prototypes for controlling vehicles and telerobotic arms. Also Pieter Jonker  (Delft University of Technology) shared his rich experience in developing  robots for various applications.  Maj. W.A.Samson (Royal Netherlands Army) and Sgt-Maj. Ben Schaik (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) shared their experiences with deployment of air and ground unmanned vehicles, respectively. The summer school program was rounded off by several practical interactive sessions. This was the fourth and final TRADR summer school.

See also the blogpost by Roland Meertens for further information.

 

 

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TRADR Robot-Assisted Disaster Response Tested By Dutch Firebrigade

26 June, 2017 Posted by tradr_admin

Partners of the TRADR project (Long-Term Human-Robot Teaming for Disaster Response) met for a Joint Exercise with end users from the Joint Firebrigade of the Rotterdam harbour region (Gezamenlijke Brandweer; https://www.gezamenlijke-brandweer.nl). After similar events in Italy and in Germany in previous years, this was the first such event in the Netherlands. It took place at a firebrigade training facility on June 26-30 2017. The purpose was to test the TRADR integrated system in a realistic scenario set up by the end users and obtain their feedback on the current system functionalities and usability

The system setup consisted of ground robots and a drone. It was used by a team of firemen who received training on various components of the TRADR system throughout the week, such as UGV control, UAV control, mapping, remote arm operation, adaptive traversability and the use of the TRADR system for tactical information management.

 

After that the full TRADR system was used in a series of exercises, in which the team had to perform a variety of situation assessment tasks (such as i.e., mapping, searching for victims, fire, smoke and leakage detection) in an environment too dangerous for humans to access, due to danger of explosions and collapsing structures. The functionalities of the integrated system included UGV and UAV operation, map creation, adaptive traversability, realtime gas and smoke detection, tactical information management, team activity reporting and speech processing to extract information about task assignment from human team communication.

 

 

 

 

The firemen were as always very enthusiastic about the TRADR system and the potential of robot-assisted disaster response in general.

The TRADR team had shown some of this potential during the real deployment in September 2016 in the earthquake-struck Amatrice, Italy (cf. www.tradr-project.eu for more details).

 

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