This document discusses the use of response robots for bushfire management in Australia. It outlines how robots could be used before, during, and after bushfire events at different scales from localized fires to statewide fires. Robots would need to operate in unstructured and hostile environments without infrastructure and be reconfigurable, redeployable, and resilient. The document presents a scenario of using multiple robots to map a forest to both monitor fuel load and biodiversity. It concludes that robots should help rather than replace workers, use off-the-shelf technologies when possible, not be stockpiled, be redeployable, reconfigurable, and resilient or redundant.

1. Response Robotics
Bushfire Use Case
Elliot Duff – Cyber Physical Systems - CSIRO

2. Response & Rescue Robotics
NIST: National Institute of Standards and Technologyhttps://www.ukras.org

3. BIA5
Australian Droid and
Robot
Little Ripper Emily
Emesent
Hovermap
Nexxis
Magneto
Molten Labs Swoop Aero
Australian Response/Rescue Robots

4. Recent Robot Challenges

5. Rescue Robots in the Media

6. Response Robotics Ecosystem
Spot Bush Fire
Rescue or ReliefResilience Rehabilitation
Time Before Event During Event After Event
Scale of
Event
IncidentEmergencyDisaster
100m
1km
100km
Localized Bush Fire
Statewide Bush Fire
Monitoring and
Management of
Ecosystem
(fuel load)
Monitoring and
Management of
Ecosystem
(Biodiversity)
Number
of Robots
1-10
10-100
100 to
10k
Rapid
Ephemeral
Response
Long-term
Persistent
Response
Dynamic
Persistent
Response

7. Response Robotics Ecosystem
Spot Bush Fire
Rescue or ReliefResilience Rehabilitation
Time Before Event During Event After Event
Scale of
Event
IncidentEmergencyDisaster
100m
1km
100km
Localized Bush Fire
Statewide Bush Fire
Monitoring and
Management of
Ecosystem (fuel load)
Monitoring and
Management of
Ecosystem
(Biodiversity)
Number
of Robots
1-10
10-100
100 to
10k
Rapid
Ephemeral
Response
Long-term
Persistent
Response
Dynamic
Persistent
Response
Monitoring and
Management of Built
Infrastructure
(compliance with BC)
Monitoring and
Management of Built
Infrastructure (rebuild
or demolition)
Cyclone
Earthquake
Flood

8. Role and Requirements
• The traditional 3 Ds of Robotics
• Dull, Dirty and Dangerous
• The extra 3 D’s for Response
• Demanding (i.e. beyond the skill of direct human control);
• Distant (i.e. avoiding the logistics problem of having to transport human workers);
• Distributed (i.e. allowing agile and scalable deployment).
• Requirements
• Unstructured dynamic and hostile environments
• Without supporting infrastructure
• Reconfigurable, Redeployable and Resilient or Redundant

9. Current: Where robots are just
remotely controlled machines
(Drones). Just an extension of
human perception and action.
Requires a change
of thinking

10. Autonomous
Pilot
Remote Mission Control
https://www.qfes.qld.gov.au/employment/jobs/fire-communications-officer.html
Future: The autonomous pilot
could be anywhere - in the
drone, or at mission control –
or even somewhere else.
Requires a change
of thinking

11. Scenario: Multi-Agent Forest Mapping
Dual use - Monitor and Manage of Ecosystem
Improve Resilience / Rehabilitation
fuel load and biodiversity assessment

12. Conclusion
Lessons Learnt
• Helping workers, not replacing them
• Off-the-shelf over prototypes
• Don’t stockpile robots
• We can’t build a robot for every event!
• We need to create community of capability
Robots need to be:
• Redeployable
• Reconfigurable
• Resilient or Redundant
And Robots can:
• Do things differently!
• Volunteer for service?