Close detection robotic platform for Search And Rescue missions based on Bluetooth Low Energy

Improvements in telecommunications and digitalization directly improve the efficacy of a wide variety of processes. Recently, detection systems have received considerable attention because of the importance of tracking infected people contacts during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Such implementations can be useful in the task of finding potential victims in the context of emergency response, especially in situations where GPS is not available or inspection by imaging is not practical. Radio signals come into play, and specifically from devices that transmit periodically and with low power consumption. With the rise of Internet of Things over the last years, the number of wearable devices that support BLE, such as smartbands, smartwatches or smartphones, has been increasing constantly, as well as the number of users that carry them. Those devices can provide considerable assistance in locating injured or unconscious people. This work presents a system for detecting victims by means of a terrestrial search and rescue (SAR) robot. A real implementation of a close detection robotic platform based on BLE for SAR interventions is laid out. To estimate the distance between a robotic agent and potential victims within an experimental area, a Log-distance path loss model is presented. The proposed scheme has been tested in realistic scenarios during SAR exercises.This work was partially funded by the Spanish project RTI2018-093421-B-I00. It has been also performed in the framework of the Horizon 2020 project LOCUS (ICT-871249) receiving funds from the European Union. This work has been also partially funded by Junta de Andalucía and ERDF projects: Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades, Proyecto de Excelencia PENTA, P18-FR-4647; postdoctoral grant (Ref., DOC 01154, “selección de personal investigador doctor convocado mediante Resolución de 21 de mayo de 2020”, PAIDI 2020) and the I Plan Propio de Investigación, Transferencia y Divulgación Científica of the University of Málaga. The authors want to thank the collaboration of the Chair for Safety, Emergencies and Disasters of the University of Malaga, led by Prof. Jesús Miranda, as well as Javier Serón Barba for his support during the experiments. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Sistema de comunicación de respaldo mediante tecnología LoRa con hardware y software abierto para aplicaciones de robótica de emergencias

Los sistemas de comunicación entre nodos sensores y los equipos de búsqueda y rescate presentan posibles vulnerabilidades ante emergencias o catástrofes, como el fallo de la infraestructura del sistema o la saturación de la red. Por ello, es necesario evaluar alternativas para garantizar la disponibilidad del sistema y los datos necesarios para la estrategia del equipo. Los requerimientos de una red de largo alcance y bajo consumo apuntan a evaluar las distintas tecnologías que engloban las redes LPWAN (Low Power, Wide Area Network). Entre ellas, destaca el protocolo LoRaWAN (Long Range, Wide Area Network) por ofrecer una flexibilidad operativa que no tienen los demás. De lado del hardware, se realizó una selección de componentes abiertos para los nodos sensores y el gateway. Para conseguir una red ad-hoc se ha usado el proyecto ChirpStack como servidor de red y de aplicación. Finalmente, se ha integrado el software de aplicación QGIS con la base de datos PostgreSQL que almacena los datos en la misma tarjeta host del gateway. El sistema fue probado en las XV Jornadas Internacionales de la Universidad de Málaga sobre Seguridad, Emergencias y Catástrofes. El código y la documentación del sistema presentado en este artículo está disponible en https://github.com/jjflozano/BackUpCommLoRa.Universidad de Málaga, Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Proyecto RTI2018-093421-B-I00, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Programa Estatal de I+D+i 2018. Proyecto UMA18-FEDERJA-090, Programa operativo FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020, Convocatoria 2018, Junta de Andalucía

Development and Implementation of a Hybrid Wireless Sensor Network of Low Power and Long Range for Urban Environments

The urban population, worldwide, is growing exponentially and with it the demand for information on pollution levels, vehicle traffic, or available parking, giving rise to citizens connected to their environment. This article presents an experimental long range (LoRa) and low power consumption network, with a combination of static and mobile wireless sensors (hybrid architecture) to tune and validate concentrator placement, to obtain a large coverage in an urban environment. A mobile node has been used, carrying a gateway and various sensors. The Activation By Personalization (ABP) mode has been used, justified for urban applications requiring multicasting. This allows to compare the coverage of each static gateway, being able to make practical decisions about its location. With this methodology, it has been possible to provide service to the city of Malaga, through a single concentrator node. The information acquired is synchronized in an external database, to monitor the data in real time, being able to geolocate the dataframes through web mapping services. This work presents the development and implementation of a hybrid wireless sensor network of long range and low power, configured and tuned to achieve efficient performance in a mid-size city, and tested in experiments in a real urban environment

Backup Communication System Using LoRa Technology With Hardware and Open Software for Emergency Robotics Applications

[Resumen] Los sistemas de comunicación entre nodos sensores y los equipos de búsqueda y rescate presentan posibles vulnerabilidades ante emergencias o catástrofes, como el fallo de la infraestructura del sistema o la saturación de la red. Por ello, es necesario evaluar alternativas para garantizar la disponibilidad del sistema y los datos necesarios para la estrategia del equipo. Los requerimientos de una red de largo alcance y bajo consumo apuntan a evaluar las distintas tecnologías que engloban las redes LPWAN (Low Power, Wide Area Network). Entre ellas, destaca el protocolo LoRaWAN (Long Range, Wide Area Network) por ofrecer una flexibilidad operativa que no tienen los demás. De lado del hardware, se realizó una selección de componentes abiertos para los nodos sensores y el gateway. Para conseguir una red ad-hoc se ha usado el proyecto ChirpStack como servidor de red y de aplicación. Finalmente, se ha integrado el software de aplicación QGIS con la base de datos PostgreSQL que almacena los datos en la misma tarjeta host del gateway. El sistema fue probado en las XV Jornadas Internacionales de la Universidad de Málaga sobre Seguridad, Emergencias y Catástrofes. El código y la documentación del sistema presentado en este artículo está disponible en https://github.com/jjflozano/BackUpCommLoRa.[Abstract] The communication systems between sensor nodes and the rescue teams present potential vulnerabilities in emergencies or disasters such as infrastructure failure or network saturation. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate alternatives to guarantee the availability of the system and the data necessary for the rescue team's strategy. The requirements of the long-range and low-consumption network aim to evaluate the different technologies within LPWAN (Low Power, Wide Area Network). Among them, the LoRaWAN (Long Range, Wide Area Network) protocol offers operational flexibility that others do not have. On the hardware side, a selection of open components was made for the sensor nodes and the gateway. To achieve an Ad-hoc network, theChirpStack project has been evaluated as a network and application server. Finally, the QGIS application software was integrated with the PostgreSQL database that stores the data in the same gateway host card. The system was tested at the XV International Conference of the University of Malaga on Security, Emergencies and Catastrophes. The system code and documentation presented in this article is available at https://github.com/jjflozano/BackUpCommLoRa.Este trabajo ha sido parcialmente financiado por los proyectos RTI2018-093421-B-I00, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Programa Estatal de I+D+i 2018, y UMA18-FEDERJA-090, Programa operativo FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020, Convocatoria 2018, Junta de Andalucía.Junta de Andalucía; UMA18-FEDERJA-090https://github.com/jjflozano/BackUpCommLoRahttps://doi.org/10.17979/spudc.978849749804

The Internet of Cooperative Agents Architecture (X-IoCA) for Robots, Hybrid Sensor Networks, and MEC Centers in Complex Environments: A Search and Rescue Case Study

Cloud robotics and advanced communications can foster a step-change in cooperative robots and hybrid wireless sensor networks (H-WSN) for demanding environments (e.g., disaster response, mining, demolition, and nuclear sites) by enabling the timely sharing of data and computational resources between robot and human teams. However, the operational complexity of such multi-agent systems requires defining effective architectures, coping with implementation details, and testing in realistic deployments. This article proposes X-IoCA, an Internet of robotic things (IoRT) and communication architecture consisting of a hybrid and heterogeneous network of wireless transceivers (H2WTN), based on LoRa and BLE technologies, and a robot operating system (ROS) network. The IoRT is connected to a feedback information system (FIS) distributed among multi-access edge computing (MEC) centers. Furthermore, we present SAR-IoCA, an implementation of the architecture for search and rescue (SAR) integrated into a 5G network. The FIS for this application consists of an SAR-FIS (including a path planner for UGVs considering risks detected by a LoRa H-WSN) and an ROS-FIS (for real-time monitoring and processing of information published throughout the ROS network). Moreover, we discuss lessons learned from using SAR-IoCA in a realistic exercise where three UGVs, a UAV, and responders collaborated to rescue victims from a tunnel accessible through rough terrain

Project Summary: TRUST-ROB, Towards Resilient UGV and UAV Manipulator Teams For Robotic Search and Rescue Tasks

The paper was presented at the Project Summary sessions.This Project Summary paper reviews the main contributions and lessons learned from the TRUST-ROB project: “Towards Resilient UGV and UAV Manipulator Teams for Robotic Search and Rescue Tasks”, which has been developed between 2019 and 2022 with funding from the Spanish Government (RTI2018-093421-B-I00).This TRUST-ROB project has been funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Gobierno de España RTI2018-093421-B-I00. The presentation of this Project Summary paper has been partially funded by Universidad de Málaga, Andalucía Tech