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This technical report is about the mission and the experience gained during the reconnaissance of an industrial hall with hazardous substances after a major fire in Berlin. During this operation, only UAVs and cameras were used to obtain information about the site and the building. First, a geo-referenced 3D model of the building was created in order to plan the entry into the hall. Subsequently, the UAVs were used to fly in the heavily damaged interior and take pictures from inside of the hall. A 360° camera mounted under the UAV was used to collect images of the surrounding area especially from sections that were difficult to fly into. Since the collected data set contained similar images as well as blurred images, it was cleaned from non-optimal images using visual SLAM, bundle adjustment and blur detection so that a 3D model and overviews could be calculated. It was shown that the emergency services were not able to extract the necessary information from the 3D model. Therefore, an interactive panorama viewer with links to other 360° images was implemented where the links to the other images depends on the semi dense point cloud and located camera positions of the visual SLAM algorithm so that the emergency forces could view the surroundings.
Abstract
Earthquakes, fire, and floods often cause structural collapses of buildings. However,
the inspection of such damaged buildings poses a high risk for emergency forces or
is even impossible. We present three recently selected missions of the Robotics Task
Force of the German Rescue Robotics Center (DRZ), where both ground and aerial
robots were used to explore destroyed buildings. We describe and reflect the
missions as well as the lessons learned that have resulted from them. To make
robots from research laboratories fit for real operations, realistic outdoor and indoor
test environments were set up at the DRZ and used for tests in regular exercises by
researchers and emergency forces. On the basis of this experience, the robots and
their control software were significantly improved. Furthermore, expert teams of
researchers and first responders were formed, each with realistic assessments of the
operational and practical suitability of robotic systems.
