Posted: 03/17/2009
Robot Heroics: Recovering the Dead, Catching Fugitives
In a couple of the comparatively rare non-combat instances of remote-controlled heroics, robots hit the waves and the tunnels to recover victims of disaster and capture border-runners.
Robots made the news repeatedly early this week, for silicon heroics that, for once, had nothing to do with the war on terror or unexploded IEDs.
On Friday a remote-operated underwater vehicle was able to locate and recover the bodies of 16 of the 16 people died in the crash of a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter off the coast of Newfoundland. The transport helicopter was ferrying 16 workers to the StatoilHydro owned Hibernia oil platform when the helicopter went down, about 55 kilometers offshore, after a distress call that said the helicopter had lost oil pressure in the main gearbox.
Robert Decker, a 30-year-old ice spotter on the North Atlantic rig, was the only one of 18 passengers and crew to survive. He was picked up by another helicopter from Cougar Helicopters about 45 minutes after the crash. The body of one other passenger was also recovered on the surface.
The other victims were recovered by an crew from Oceaneering Canada, LTD., using a pair of 150HP Millenium III ROVs with a depth rating of 10,000 feet and a payload capacity of 700 pounds.
The units are more typically used to inspect and repair oil pumping equipment in the oil fields off Newfoundland.
The ROVs operated from the back deck of the Atlantic Osprey, an off-shore heavy maintenance vessel operated by Atlantic Towing Limited St. John, New Brunswick.
Decker, who broke at least one bone and is recovering from hypothermia and salt water in his lungs, was conscious as early as Friday evening, but as of Monday, he could still not communicate anything about the crash.
Also this week, across the country and underground, rather than under water, an unnamed, video-equipped, remote-operated ground vehicle helped make a bust in the border town of San Ysidro, Calif. last week, just south of San Diego.
Border Patrol agents have been using the bot as a tunnel rat to check out the holes smugglers often dig along the borderlands of the U.S. and Mexico to bring either immigrants or drugs across clandestinely.
In this case, a witness reported seeing people hiding in a storm drain around 2 a.m. Saturday. Border Patrol agents inserted the robot into the drainage system through the grate of a storm drain, and navigated through piles of debris and trash until they found a group of six men and two women hiding in a different section of the pipe system than the one they entered.
Along the way the robot encountered two other people wrapped in blankets, who were either living in the drain or hiding. When they used the robot’s speaker to ask of the people needed help, the two fled deeper into the sewers and disappeared.
The robot was operated by a contractor working with the Border Patrol, but Robotics Trends was unable to identify the model or manufacturer.
Meanwhile, in the more-typically-desperate unmanned-vehicle arena in Middle Eastern war zones, the U.S. military confirmed it had shot down an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle flying into Iraq from Iran.
Wired.com’s Danger Room reports the U.S. military observed the Iranian Ababil-3 drone before shooting it down, but couldn’t get confirmation from official sources in either Iran or U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq that the incident happened.
Sikorsky helicopter belonging to Cougar Helicopters, similar to the one that crashed Thursday night. Source: CBC
