The Hiss-toric Savior: A Robotic Snake for Underground Search and Rescue

After the devastating earthquakes that happened in February 6, 2023 in Syria and Turkey, the rescue missions for the victims started. However, the rescue operations were found to be inefficient and the urgency to enhance these critical operations became crucial necessitating the integration of advanced technologies to optimize the search for survivors under the rubble. This important shift towards robotics implementation aim to enhance rescue missions, ensure smoother and more effective detection, and retrieval of individuals trapped after the occurrence of a certain natural disaster.

This capstone design project aims at introducing a robotic prototype constituted of a versatile snake-robot that can be deployed and used post a natural disaster to optimize and improve the efficiency of rescue operations. Our solution is composed of three main components, the control center box for earthquake detection, the mobile application for robot monitoring, and the robotic snake. The control center box continuously monitors earthquake activity and sends a command to the robotic snake to start searching for victims when a building collapse is detected. Equipped with various sensors, the snake ventures into confined spaces, locating victims and providing them with water. The data collected by the snake is transmitted and stored in the control center box. In addition, rescuers can connect to the control center box through a mobile application to view the collected data and whether or not survivors have been detected. They can also control the snake from the app and view the live video feeds and images captured by the snake.

Project Details

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