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Over a million people are killed each year in disasters, and two and a half million more are permanently disabled or displaced. Communities can take 20 to 30 years to recover from the billions of dollars in economic losses. If the initial response can be accelerated by just one day, the overall recovery time can be reduced by a thousand days or approximately three years. Early intervention allows responders to save lives and mitigate the dangers posed by flooding or structural collapse. Once initial risks are managed, other groups can restore water supply, roads, electricity, and enable construction and insurance teams to rebuild homes, thereby helping restore and strengthen the economy in preparation for future disasters. This underlines why disaster robotics is crucial: robots can accelerate disaster response, potentially saving both time and lives.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are an important part of disaster robotics. There are two main types: rotocraft, like the hummingbird, and fixed-wing, like the hawk. Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, they have been extensively used. The hummingbird rotocraft is invaluable for structural engineers, providing detailed aerial perspectives that cannot be achieved with binoculars or satellite imagery. Fixed-wing hawks are ideal for geospatial surveys, gathering imagery and creating 3D reconstructions. For example, during the OSO mudslides in Washington State, UAVs enabled responders to quickly understand the hydrological and geographical situation, which was crucial to protecting both people and the environment. In just seven hours, UAVs provided data that would otherwise have taken days to collect at lower resolution, demonstrating a significant transformation in disaster response capabilities.

While UAVs are highly visible, unmanned marine vehicles play an equally critical role. About 80% of the global population lives near water, meaning that critical infrastructure like bridges, pipelines, and ports is often underwater or hard to reach. Marine vehicles, such as Sarbada, use sonar to inspect underwater structures and provide essential data. For instance, after the Japanese tsunami, large stretches of coastlines were devastated, creating challenges for port access and supply distribution. At a fishing port, Sarbada’s sonar allowed reopening in just four hours, instead of the two weeks required by a manual diving team. This rapid intervention not only saved economic activity but also demonstrated the irreplaceable value of marine robotic technology in disaster scenarios.

Ground-based unmanned vehicles, such as Buzhul, complement aerial and marine robots by accessing spaces humans cannot enter. Buzhul was deployed at the World Trade Center to navigate dangerous rubble, entering areas too small, unstable, or hot for people or dogs. These robots do not replace human responders but assist experts with data collection and situational awareness. The primary challenge is not building smaller or more heat-resistant robots, but managing the data they gather. Experts need accurate information quickly, without being overwhelmed by excessive or poorly distributed data. Efficient informatics is therefore central to the success of disaster robotics.

Data management is a critical focus in disaster robotics. At the World Trade Center, only select data from Buzhul was recorded at the time, missing valuable structural information that would have benefited civil engineers. Moreover, multiple inspections of the same buildings by different agencies can be streamlined using robot-gathered data, allowing response phases to occur in parallel. This not only shortens overall response time but ensures all stakeholders have access to the same information. Disaster robotics, therefore, is less about the machines themselves and more about leveraging the data they collect. The future of disaster response depends on integrating aerial, ground, and marine robots to deliver precise, actionable information efficiently, ensuring faster recovery and better preparedness for future crises.