Search, Rescue and Security Applications

In the context of the employed statistical scheme, the group of fire, bomb fighting, surveillance, and (civil) security refer to civilian robot applications. Many of those robots are remote-controlled or semi-autonomous, therefore the chapter considers actual robots as well as robotic devices which come with a limited level of autonomy. A classification scheme of rescue and security robots according to disaster types has been offered by Murphy et al. as follows: meteorological, geological, man-made (terrorist), and mining. Furthermore, the overview lists 37 actual disasters since 2001, the year of 9/11, in which robots were deployed including their success rate.