Over a million people are killed each year in disasters. Two and a half million people will be permanently disabled or displaced, and the communities will take 20 to 30 years to recover and billions of economic losses.
每年超过100万人在灾难中丧生。 250万人因意外而终生残疾或流离失所, 重建家园需要20到30年的时间, 花费高达数十亿。
If you can reduce the initial response by one day, you can reduce the overall recovery by a thousand days, or three years. See how that works? If the initial responders can get in, save lives, mitigate whatever flooding danger there is, that means the other groups can get in to restore the water, the roads, the electricity, which means then the construction people, the insurance agents, all of them can get in to rebuild the houses, which then means you can restore the economy, and maybe even make it better and more resilient to the next disaster. A major insurance company told me that if they can get a homeowner's claim processed one day earlier, it'll make a difference of six months in that person getting their home repaired.
如果最初的应急响应能提前一天, 灾后重建工作就能缩短 1000天,大约3年。 知道为什么吗? 如果应急响应小组 能够(及时)行动,拯救遇难者, 缓解洪水或者其他灾害的影响, 其他团队就可以(尽快)开始 恢复供水,交通,电力, 这样的话,施工人员,保险代理人, 所有人都可以(尽快)开始重建房屋, 经济就能(迅速)恢复, 甚至变得更好, 提高今后对灾难的抗打击能力。 一家大型的保险公司曾告诉我 如果他们能够提早一天处理房主的理赔申请, 房主的房屋就可以 提前六个月修好。
And that's why I do disaster robotics -- because robots can make a disaster go away faster.
这就是为什么我研究救灾机器人—— 因为机器人能够更快地应对灾难。
Now, you've already seen a couple of these. These are the UAVs. These are two types of UAVs: a rotorcraft, or hummingbird; a fixed-wing, a hawk. And they're used extensively since 2005 -- Hurricane Katrina. Let me show you how this hummingbird, this rotorcraft, works. Fantastic for structural engineers. Being able to see damage from angles you can't get from binoculars on the ground or from a satellite image, or anything flying at a higher angle. But it's not just structural engineers and insurance people who need this. You've got things like this fixed-wing, this hawk. Now, this hawk can be used for geospatial surveys. That's where you're pulling imagery together and getting 3D reconstruction.
相信大家以前都见过无人机。 这些是无人机 这里有两种无人机: 一种是旋翼机,也叫“蜂鸟”; 另一种是固定翼的,也叫“雄鹰”。 它们从2005年卡特里娜飓风起 就被广泛使用。 我们来看看“蜂鸟”是如何工作的。 “蜂鸟”对结构工程师帮助巨大。 能帮助你从不同角度观察受损情况, 而这些角度无论是地面望远镜, 还是卫星图像, 或者其他任何高空飞行器都无法提供。 (无人机)不光能帮助 结构工程师和保险业者。 比如这架“雄鹰”固定翼无人机, 可以用来做地理空间测绘。 将它拍摄的图像拼在一起, 就能生成3D图像。
We used both of these at the Oso mudslides up in Washington State, because the big problem was geospatial and hydrological understanding of the disaster -- not the search and rescue. The search and rescue teams had it under control and knew what they were doing. The bigger problem was that river and mudslide might wipe them out and flood the responders. And not only was it challenging to the responders and property damage, it's also putting at risk the future of salmon fishing along that part of Washington State. So they needed to understand what was going on. In seven hours, going from Arlington, driving from the Incident Command Post to the site, flying the UAVs, processing the data, driving back to Arlington command post -- seven hours. We gave them in seven hours data that they could take only two to three days to get any other way -- and at higher resolution. It's a game changer.
我们在华盛顿州的奥索泥石流灾害 中用到了这两种无人机, 因为难点在于 了解灾害的地理和水文性质, 而不是搜寻和救援。 这是搜寻救援队的工作, 他们是专业的。 更严重的问题是河水和泥石流可能会把 救援队冲走。 这不仅会造成救援队人身和财产损失, 还会对未来华盛顿州地区的三文鱼捕捞 带来不利影响。 所以他们需要了解灾害情况。 在7小时内,(我们)从阿灵顿的 灾难指挥所开车到事发现场,操控无人机, 处理得到的数据,开车回到阿灵顿指挥所, (总共)七个小时。 我们在七个小时内提供给他们的数据, 如果用别的方式可能需要两三天。 而且(我们的数据)分辨率更高。 这是一个巨大的突破。
And don't just think about the UAVs. I mean, they are sexy -- but remember, 80 percent of the world's population lives by water, and that means our critical infrastructure is underwater -- the parts that we can't get to, like the bridges and things like that. And that's why we have unmanned marine vehicles, one type of which you've already met, which is SARbot, a square dolphin. It goes underwater and uses sonar. Well, why are marine vehicles so important and why are they very, very important? They get overlooked. Think about the Japanese tsunami -- 400 miles of coastland totally devastated, twice the amount of coastland devastated by Hurricane Katrina in the United States. You're talking about your bridges, your pipelines, your ports -- wiped out. And if you don't have a port, you don't have a way to get in enough relief supplies to support a population. That was a huge problem at the Haiti earthquake. So we need marine vehicles.
但还有比它们更厉害的。 没错,无人机确实很神奇——但请记住, 世界上80%的人口都生活在水边, 这就意味着我们关键的基础设施都在水里—— 而我们无法到达,比如桥梁等设施。 于是我们发明了水下无人机器人, 大家看到的这个是SARbot, 又叫“方形海豚”。 它能潜入水中并使用声纳。 为什么水下机器人如此重要? 原因是什么? (因为)它们常被人忽视。 回顾一下日本海啸—— 总共400英里的海岸线被完全摧毁, 是美国卡特里娜飓风 摧毁的海岸线长度的两倍。 所有的桥梁,管道,港口都被完全摧毁。 如果没有港口, 就无法运输足够的救灾物资 去支援受灾人群。 这在海地地震时就是一个巨大的难题。 所以,我们需要水下机器人。
Now, let's look at a viewpoint from the SARbot of what they were seeing. We were working on a fishing port. We were able to reopen that fishing port, using her sonar, in four hours. That fishing port was told it was going to be six months before they could get a manual team of divers in, and it was going to take the divers two weeks. They were going to miss the fall fishing season, which was the major economy for that part, which is kind of like their Cape Cod. UMVs, very important.
现在,我们从SARbot的角度 看看它能看见什么。 我们曾帮助过一个渔港。 在(SARbot的)声纳帮助下, 我们在四个小时内就让渔港恢复了工作。 渔港原本被告知,潜水员 要六个月之后才能开始工作, 工作时间还需要两个星期。 这样一来他们会错过秋季渔汛, 那是当地的主要经济来源, 有点像咱们的鲟鱼角。 水下机器人,非常重要。
But you know, all the robots I've shown you have been small, and that's because robots don't do things that people do. They go places people can't go. And a great example of that is Bujold. Unmanned ground vehicles are particularly small, so Bujold --
我给大家展示的机器人都很小, 因为它们需要做的, 是人类做不了的事。 需要前往的, 是人类去不了的地方。 其中具有代表性的机器人是布约德。 陆地无人机都特别小, 布约德
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Say hello to Bujold.
向布约德问好。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Bujold was used extensively at the World Trade Center to go through Towers 1, 2 and 4. You're climbing into the rubble, rappelling down, going deep in spaces. And just to see the World Trade Center from Bujold's viewpoint, look at this. You're talking about a disaster where you can't fit a person or a dog -- and it's on fire. The only hope of getting to a survivor way in the basement, you have to go through things that are on fire. It was so hot, on one of the robots, the tracks began to melt and come off. Robots don't replace people or dogs, or hummingbirds or hawks or dolphins. They do things new. They assist the responders, the experts, in new and innovative ways.
布约德在世贸中心救援中被广泛使用, 它可以穿过一、二和三号大楼, 从上方钻入废墟, 一路向下,进到很深的地方。 这是从布约德的角度来看世界贸易中心。 在这场灾难中,你无法派人或狗进入现场, 而且到处都是大火。 想要救出被困在地下室的幸存者, 只能通过熊熊燃烧的火场。 现场温度很高,其中一个机器人 的履带都融化脱落了。 机器人并不能取代人或者狗, 也不能取代蜂鸟,老鹰或海豚。 它们能够做与众不同的事。 它们用创新的方式协助救援队和专家。
The biggest problem is not making the robots smaller, though. It's not making them more heat-resistant. It's not making more sensors. The biggest problem is the data, the informatics, because these people need to get the right data at the right time.
现在最大的挑战 并不是把机器人变得更小。 也不是让它们更加耐热。 也不是安装更多的传感器。 最大的难题是(处理)数据和信息, 因为人们需要在正确的时间得到准确的信息。
So wouldn't it be great if we could have experts immediately access the robots without having to waste any time of driving to the site, so whoever's there, use their robots over the Internet. Well, let's think about that. Let's think about a chemical train derailment in a rural county. What are the odds that the experts, your chemical engineer, your railroad transportation engineers, have been trained on whatever UAV that particular county happens to have? Probably, like, none. So we're using these kinds of interfaces to allow people to use the robots without knowing what robot they're using, or even if they're using a robot or not. What the robots give you, what they give the experts, is data.
如果专家们能实时获取机器人取得的数据, 不需要等机器人回到指挥所, 可以直接在线使用机器人,那该有多棒。 让我们想象一下。 如果一列装载化学品的列车 在偏远地区脱轨, 专家们,比如化学工程师, 铁道运输工程师, 有多大的几率当地正好有 他们会使用的无人机呢? 也许完全没有。 所以我们开发了一种(通用)界面, 人们即使对自己使用的机器人不熟悉, 也能(正常)操纵它们, 甚至都不需要知道他们在操纵机器人。 机器人提供给我们的,给专家的,是数据。
The problem becomes: who gets what data when? One thing to do is to ship all the information to everybody and let them sort it out. Well, the problem with that is it overwhelms the networks, and worse yet, it overwhelms the cognitive abilities of each of the people trying to get that one nugget of information they need to make the decision that's going to make the difference. So we need to think about those kinds of challenges. So it's the data.
接下来的问题是: (如何决定)谁在什么时候得到何种数据? 一种办法是把所有的信息给所有的人 让他们自己筛选。 但这样做可能会导致 (传输数据的)网络超载。 更糟的是,它可能超越了 人类认知能力(的极限), 因为每个人都需要从(海量)数据中 筛选出自己所需要的那一小部分, 来作决定,而这决定可能关乎生死。 所以我们要再三斟酌。 这是关于数据的难题。
Going back to the World Trade Center, we tried to solve that problem by just recording the data from Bujold only when she was deep in the rubble, because that's what the USAR team said they wanted. What we didn't know at the time was that the civil engineers would have loved, needed the data as we recorded the box beams, the serial numbers, the locations, as we went into the rubble. We lost valuable data. So the challenge is getting all the data and getting it to the right people.
再来看世贸中心救援, 我们是在布约德进入废墟深处后 才开始记录数据的, 因为这是坍塌搜救专队的要求。 而有一件事我们当时不知道, 就是土木工程师十分需要了解 箱型梁的编号和位置, 而这些数据在机器人刚进入废墟时, 就应该开始记录。 我们失去了重要的数据。 所以难题就在于收集所有的数据 并交给需要的人。
Now, here's another reason. We've learned that some buildings -- things like schools, hospitals, city halls -- get inspected four times by different agencies throughout the response phases. Now, we're looking, if we can get the data from the robots to share, not only can we do things like compress that sequence of phases to shorten the response time, but now we can begin to do the response in parallel. Everybody can see the data. We can shorten it that way.
还有另一个原因。 我们得知一些建筑物—— 比如学校、医院、市政府—— 在应急响应过程中被不同的机构 检查了四次。 如果我们能够分享机器人收集的数据, 我们不仅能简化响应程序, 缩短响应时间, 我们还可以同时开展多项工作。 (因为)数据是共享的, 我们可以节约时间。
So really, "disaster robotics" is a misnomer. It's not about the robots. It's about the data.
其实,“灾难机器人”这个描述不是很贴切。 因为关键不在于机器人, 而是数据。
(Applause)
(掌声)
So my challenge to you: the next time you hear about a disaster, look for the robots. They may be underground, they may be underwater, they may be in the sky, but they should be there. Look for the robots, because robots are coming to the rescue.
交给大家一项任务: 如果之后听到关于灾难的报道, 多关注一下机器人。 它们可能在地下,可能在水底, 也可能在空中, 但是它们肯定在现场。 去找一找机器人的身影, 因为机器人来救援了。
(Applause)
(掌声)