An investor and entrepreneur, Chris Moehle is the former associate director of new ventures at the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC). Chris Moehle left NREC to raise funds to create a first-of-its-kind investment fund, The Robotics Hub, aimed solely at supporting new businesses and their breakthrough robotics applications.

After disasters such as earthquakes and floods, first responders risk their lives to save victims. Even with their best efforts, first responders may not be able to access victims who are missing or buried in rubble.

This creates an ideal scenario for human robot collaboration. Human judgement is certainly required, but robots can certainly add sensing and access that humans cannot safely provide. As a result, robots are being developed to assist disaster response teams in their efforts to discover and aid victims.

One barrier to robots being helpful in this environment has been mobility. Researchers at companies like Agility Robotics, working in collaboration with the United States Army, Cal Tech, and Michigan has developed a robust, agile robot that walks on two legs. The team believes the robot will be useful for finding safe ways for responders to enter dusaster areas by being “first in” itself.

Once at the disaster site, robots can do things that humans cannot. This can be as simple as lifting heavy objects or as complex as using non-visual sensing to see through solid objects,smoke, and flames. In all cases the best solutions are adding to human ability, not replacing something humans do well. Its the first responders making the ultimate decisions. There is no substituting machine intelligence for human judgement.