Office of Naval Research, the Navy's Small Business Innovation Research and Hydronalix, EMILY can cruise along at speeds of up to 22 mph thanks to its 22-volt battery powered engine. According to PRI, EMILY aided more than 240 refugees in its first 10 days of deployment alone.Ĭo-developed by the U.S. Although its first version dates back to 2010, the robot was relatively little known until 2016, when it reportedly helped rescue hundreds of asylum seekers off the coast of Greece during the European migrant crisis. How it's using rescue robots: Hyrodnalix’s Emergency Integrated Lifesaving Lanyard (EMILY) is a four-foot, 25-pound remote-controlled robot that acts as a hybrid flotation buoy-lifeboat. These companies are pushing maritime rescue robotics further into uncharted waters. They go where humans can't - and shouldn't. Swift-moving rapids could sweep a distressed swimmer downstream. Ice might give way under a person's feet, plunging them into frigid water.Įnter: water rescue robots. Lots of water rescues occur under dangerous conditions, but some are just too difficult for humans to perform without risking serious injury or loss of life.Ī vehicle could become stranded in the fast-rising waters of a flash flood. Here are a dozen examples of how rescue robots are helping save lives by land, sea and air. Responders, she said, need to know more about the highly effective tech tools at their disposal. So much so, in fact, that when rescue-robot trailblazer Robin Murphy was recently asked which rescue-robot problem she would most like to see disappear, her reply was surprisingly simple: lack of awareness.

Rescue robots - those that fly, swim, crawl through rubble, douse fires or otherwise help first responders tackle trouble - have advanced tremendously over the last several decades.

Increasingly, that means robotics to the rescue. When it comes to disaster response, then, it goes to reason that more help is better than less. Since 1970, according to the United Nations, the number of cataclysmic events worldwide has quadrupled. Natural disasters are on the rise - dramatically so.

War robot in real life