Mobile Battlefield Robotics Casualty Rescue and Care

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U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel
Command Telemedicine Advanced Technology
Research Center Cutting Edge Medical
Technology

• Mobile Battlefield Robotics -
  Casualty Rescue and Care
• American Telemedicine Association
• Advanced Briefing for Industry
• December 2 3, 2004

Gary R. Gilbert, Ph.D. - University of
Pittsburgh Department of Electrical
Engineering Troy A. Turner, MBA - Battelle
Memorial Institute
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Why ROBOTs?

• Most combat medic casualties occur treating
  soldiers under fire.
• Many soldier casualties occur when providing
  buddy aid.
• Prevalence of urban operations in peace
  keeping/humanitarian missions
• Operations in hazardous and contaminated areas
  due to increased
• threat of weapons of mass destruction.
• Army Future Combat Systems goal is to require
  1/3 of its vehicle be
• autonomous by 2015.
• Robotic vehicles reduce deployment weight,
  volume, and requirements
• for airlift.

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• The Mission of the
• TATRC Mobile Robotics Portfolio
• is to Develop Truly Autonomous
• Combat Casualty Rescue and Care.

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Current Robotic RD Investments

• Applied Perception, Inc. - Robotic Patient
  Rescue vehicles

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Current Robotic RD Investments

• Foster-Miller, Inc. - Robotic Stretcher

• Casualty Alignment
• Casualty Elevation
• Casualty Lifting/Carrying

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Current Robotic RD Investments

• iRobot, Inc. - Packbot-based Casualty Rescue
  System

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Current Robotic RD Investments

• St. Francis University, Lorretto, PA / CERMUSA -
  Mobile Communications Platform and Robotic
  Emergency Medical Danger-Detection

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Current Robotic RD Investments

• Drexel University / Civilian Medical Response
  Center (CiMeRC) - Man-Portable Hover Stare UAV

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Investment and Development Directions

• Current Holy Grail - Picking up the
  casualty without doing further harm. Still no
  emerging direction or tech leader.
• Common/Open Robotic Operating Systems.
• Navigation Technologies.
• User Interface - Video game builders are
  experts in user interfaces that even
  preschoolers are able to use to perform
  complicated tasks take advantage of that.
• Patient Detection Technologies - RFID, UWB,
  Infra-Red, Color-Image Segmentation, WPSM.
• Casualty Search UAV Man-Portable.
• Casualty Rescue/Retrieval UAV.

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Schedule / Milestones

• Dec. 02 Jul. 03 Phase I SBIR initial
  investigation of relevant technologies.
• Jul. 03 Nov. 03 Phase I Option produce
  detailed system
• 
  design.
• Nov. 03 Phase II SBIR REV/REX Start.
• May 04 Casualty Extraction Robotic
  Stretcher Payload Start.
• Aug 04 Demonstration of navigation and
  individual sensing technologies.
• Dec 04 Prototype Evacuation and Extraction
  Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) mobility platforms
  built and demonstrated.
• Mar 05 Demo of initial patient detection
  technologies.
• Aug 05 Final demo of patient detection and
  evacuation.

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MRMC/TATRC POCsGary Gilbert, Ph.D.Troy Turner,
MBA301-619-4043/7954gilbert_at_tatrc.org
turner_at_tatrc.org
Telemedicine Advanced Technology Research
Center Cutting Edge Medical Technology
Questions?