After the earthquakes in l'Aquila and Haiti, the European Union noted that there exists a large discrepancy between robotic technology which is developed in science labs and the use of such technology on the terrain for search and rescue operations and crisis management. Thus, they decided to sponsor a European research project, ICARUS. ICARUS stands for “Integrated Components for Assisted Rescue and Unmanned Search operations” and aims to develop robotic tools which can assist "human" crisis intervention teams.
The aim of this questionnaire is to fine-tune the end-user requirements concerning the unmanned tools to be used (e.g. during an earthquake response) and the related USAR activities. The goal is to find out what specific requirements the USAR community would estimate to be indispensable, wishful or nice to have.
When filling in this questionnaire, you have to consider that requesting more technical capabilities will have an influence on the design of the vehicle(s) (size, weight).
The development has to be seen as an integrated part and an added value to our USAR activities while deployed overseas, including the management (decision making process) and should not be seen as a stand-alone product.
The consortium will give a feedback about the results to all participants to the questionnaire as well as the INSARAG secretariat.
Please note that none of the questions are obligatory, so you may skip through if you do not know the answer on a particular question.
