Since 2005, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has conducted annual robot evaluation exercises at Disaster City® to evaluate emerging robotic capabilities for use by emergency responders. Ground, air, and sea-based robots are provided realistic disaster scenarios and situations over a five-day period.

The sixth in a series of DHS/NIST response robot evaluation exercises was hosted at the emergency responder training facility known as Disaster City in College Station, TX on March 8-12, 2010. Over 200 participants attended the week long exercise, including thirty emergency responders from across the country. Responders included including FEMA urban search and rescue teams; federal, state and local bomb squads; and police/SWAT teams, to help validate emerging standard robot test methods, become familiar with available robot capabilities, and advise robot developers regarding operational requirements.


March 2010 NIST Evaluation Photos
November 2008 NIST Evaluation Photos
June 2007 NIST Evaluation Photos
April 2006 NIST Evaluation Photos

Ground, Air, and Sea based robots from around the world were invited to take part in this evaluation exercise, which captured robot performance data within emerging standard robot test methods and operationally relevant practice scenarios.

Robot Manufacturers can click here to register for this exercise.

The response robot evaluation exercises in Disaster City introduces emerging robotic capabilities to emergency responders within their own training facilities, while educating robot developers regarding the necessary performance requirements and operational constraints to be effective. This exercise helps to refine the proposed standard test methods and fixtures/props that developers can use to practice critical capabilities and measure performance in ways that are relevant to emergency responders. The event is conducted in Disaster City to help correlate the proposed standard test methods with envisioned deployment tasks and to lay the foundation for usage guides identifying a robot's applicability to particular response scenarios.

• Ground-based portable robots that can circumnavigate large unknown situations (i.e. around the train derailment).
  
  
• Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) capable of flying over disaster scenes, conducting search operations and providing a stationary observation platform.
  
  
• Underwater robots, capable of searching large bodies of water and providing video images to the surface.
  
  
• Highly agile, man-packable robots that can lead responders through complex environments (i.e. the buildings and rubble piles).
  
  
• Confined-space accessible robots for deployment into sub-human size voids or be thrown into/over inaccessible areas.
  
  
• Wall-climbing robots for surveillance from elevated vantage points.