2020 Pilot Session – RoboEMS

“In large-scale emergency disasters such as earthquakes or hurricanes, significant damage can occur not only to people, but to infrastructure and transportation as well. In these situations where timely medical care is critical for saving lives, creative solutions are required in order to address the impact of infrastructure damage on safety and efficacy of emergency medical services. The ROBO EMS project was developed to provide a robotic assistance system for EMT personnel in the field, where unmanned aerial systems could be used to search for survivors, deliver supplies and medicine, and transport injured persons. 


For the first pilot project session of ARC, students were tasked with developing a robotic assistance system for emergency medical services (RoboEMS) during a large-scale disaster. The goal of the system was to provide various services to support EMTs in the field, which include medicine/supply delivery, autonomous search and rescue, direct hospital communication, and overall relief effort coordination. The students were able to develop an app concept that unified the various design goals of the project, and they also designed the robotic support system which included the selection of appropriate off-the-market unmanned aerial vehicle platforms, ground based rover transports, and communication systems. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic required the project to be conducted virtually.