Alive Human Detection in Disaster Zones

ISSN(Online): 2320-9801
ISSN (Print): 2320-9798
International Journal of Innovative Research in Computer

and Communication Engineering
(An ISO 3297: 2007 Certified Organization)
Vol. 3, Special Issue 2, March 2015
Alive Human Detection in Disaster Zones

using Manually Controlled Robots
Geetha Bharathi.V.S 1, Dr.S.Sudha 2
PG Student, Department of ECE, Easwari Engineering College, Chennai, TN, India1
Professor, Department of ECE, Easwari Engineering College, Chennai, TN, India2
ABSTRACT: Natural calamities like Earthquakes, Tsunami and man made disasters bomb explosion, building
collapse often occur and they cannot be stopped. Humans are getting increased knowledge in the concept of intelligent
rescue operations in such calamities so as to save precious life and material, however calamities cannot be stopped. Still
there are many natural and man-made disasters that occur all of a sudden. They produce a devastating effect and find no
difference among human and material. Therefore many a times humans are buried among the detritus and it becomes
impossible to detect them. Only a timely rescue can only save people those have been buried and wounded. Detection
by rescue workers like policeman, fire fighters and medical services is time consuming because of the vast area that
gets affected. Human rescuers must make quick decisions under stress and try to get victims to safety at their own risk.
They need to gather and find the location, status of victims and the stability of the structures as fast and early as
possible so that medics and fire fighters can enter the disaster area and save the victims. Mostly trained dogs and
humans, perform all these tasks. This project proposes a mobile robotic vehicle that moves in the disaster prone area for
detecting alive humans in such devasting environments and helps to identify the live people and rescue operations. In
this project Passive Infra Red (PIR) sensor has been used.
KEYWORDS: Human Detection, Mobile Robotic vehicle, SAR, Urban Search and Rescue
I. INTRODUCTION
Every year, various collapse of man-made structures such as bridges, buildings and also natural catastrophes
like Earthquake, landslides occur in various parts of the world. The Urban search and Rescue (USAR) says, the
probability of saving a victim is high only within the first 48 hours of rescue operation, and then the probability
becomes Zero.
In such cases, humans are being trapped in the cavities created by collapsed building either in conscious or
unconscious state. One of the major Natural disaster that took place in January 2001, at Gujarat resulted in a huge loss
of Human lives and property. A recent collapse of man-made multi-storied building at Moulivakkam in July-2014
claimed nearly 60 lives as per „Hindusthan times.
In the time of Rescue operation, several persons like fire fighters, policemen, and medical assistance are
deployed. These people are exposed to very dangerous situations caused by the destructed environment they work in
like collapsed buildings, landslides, crater, etc. So, there is a chance for the rescuer to become a victim who needs to be
rescues. It means the rescue operation imposes a substantial risk on rescue personnel themselves.
So, from this point of view, we need to look for an alternative to Human rescuers. This has always been a great
challenge.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
In initial days dogs were used because of their High sensitivity to any slight motion or Human presence. But it
was hard to totally depend on them since they can predict the presence of a living victim and dead victim and also they
were not able to expose the exact situation of the human.
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ISSN (Print): 2320-9798

One major drawback was dogs couldn‟t work independently; they need assistance of a human. It means, the need is
totally or partially independent to human factor but still depends on human.
Later techniques such as
1. Optical devices namely Tactic Pole Utility system

2. Acoustic devices like Microphones and Amplifiers were used but with limited applications.
Robots are now achieving good progress in many fields like Military, Industry, Medicine, etc., with proven
efficiency. They are playing an important role in replacing Human factor in almost all fields.
Usha Tiwari, Rahul Kaushik, Shraddha Subramaniyan, (2012), “A technical review on Human Rescue
Robots”, VSRD-IJEECE, Vil. 2 (3), 127-134 has explained about designing a Robot to navigate in the rubble with
various sensors. This method used 2 methods to detect alive human, one is IR radiation emerging from the live humans
and other is using the sound or cry for the help made from the humans.
Mauricio Correa, Gabriel Hermosilla, Rodrigo Verschae, Javier Ruiz-del-Solar, (2012), “Human Detection
and Identification by Robots using Thermal and Visual information in Domestic Environments”, J Intell Robot Syst
(2012) 66:223-243 has given the concept of enabling robots to detect and identify humans in domestic environment.
This work was done with the aid of Thermal and Visual Information sources that were integrated to detect humans and
further processed to verify it.
Remote Operated and Controlled Hexapod (ROACH) is a six-legged design that provides significant
advantages in mobility over wheeled and tracked designs. It was equipped with predefined walking gaits, cameras,
which transmit, live audio and videos of the disaster site, as well as information about locations of objects with respect
to the robot‟s position to the interface on the laptop. Specialized robots have been designed for these types of
environments such as KOHGA the snake like robot. This robot was constructed by connecting multiple crawler
vehicles serially, resulting in a long and thin structure so that it can enter narrow space.
Quality work has been done in the field of robotics. They came into existence in the early 21 st century but
since then enormous improvements have been made in its concept, design based on purpose of use. Various rescue
robots have been developed and some of these are – CRASAR (Centre for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue) in
University of South Florida.This robot was used for first time in real conditions on 11 th September 2001 in the World
Trade Centre disaster. Different sensors like millimeter wave radar for measuring distance, a color CCD camera for
vision and a forward-looking infrared camera for the human heat detection were used in it.
Shwetha, R, Dr. Chethan H K, (2014), “Automatic and Manual Controlled Alive Human Detection Robot
during disaster Management”, International Journal for Technological Research in Engineering”, ISSN: 2347-4718,
Volume 1, Issue 11 has done a work on designing an economical robot, which works using AVR, MCU, PIR sensor.
This robot senses the human body temperature using PIR sensor and an alarm/indicator is used to indicate the signal
when it detects alive body and this message is sent through SMS using GSM technology to enable rescue operation.
Burion presented a project that provided a sensor suitable for human detection for the USAR robots. It
evaluated several types of sensors for detecting humans such as pyro electric sensor, USB camera, microphone, and IR
camera. The pyro electric sensor was used to detect the human body radiation. The USB camera was used for motion
detection. A microphone was used for long duration and high amplitude sound detection. The IR camera was used to
detect humans by their heat image. The main idea was to detect a change in the image scene by checking the values of
the pixels. Several images for the scene were acquired and subtracted from each other to discover if a motion has
occurred. The used technique was fairly efficient in detecting the victims. But still, the robot was not fully autonomous
and was dependent on the operator.
II. BLOCK DIAGRAM
As shown in fig 1, this system consists of a Robot section and Control section. Furthermore Robot section
consists of a movable unit, which has Bluetooth module, GPS Receiver, an LCD display, PIR sensor mount on it and a

ISSN (Print): 2320-9798

microcontroller Atmega-328.
Control unit consists of a manual control using a remote to control the movement of the robot and a PC interfaced with
the robot section using Bluetooth to get the output of GPS receiver. i.e. To find the exact location of the human.
Fig. 1 Human Body Detection System
III. FLOW CHART
As shown in fig 2, in the flow chart of developed system first the Robocar navigates in an open field and PIR
sensor checks for the alive human. If yes, then the GPS shows the exact location of the human in the PC screen that is
in the Control section, with the rescuers. This will show the presence of human being and the PIR sensor can detect
motion in around 1200.

ISSN (Print): 2320-9798

IV. HARDWARE RESULTS
In order to simulate the robot, a remote was designed and the control was with the rescue team. This helped
the rescuers to move the Robot in various directions. This Robot consists of a PIR Sensor and a camera fitted to it so as
to record and display data when sensor triggers it.
Fig 3. PIR Detection Angle
This Robocar is set ON with the help of ON button present in the Robocar. Once this starts, the remote control
with four keys is used to move this car. Among the four keys, two are used to move this car forward and backward and
other two are used to move it left and right.
Fig 4. Mobile Rescue Robot with LED ON
The PIR sensor triggers and starts sensing. The PIR detection angle is 120 0 around it.
Fig 5. LED Output-1
Fig 4 represents the LED output of the PIR Sensor when it is in rescue operation and when no human is found
around its detection angle.
Fig 5 represents the output of PIR sensor, when any Human being is found alive around its detection angle. It displays
in the screen as Human detected. This output lasts for few seconds and again it starts searching for human.

ISSN (Print): 2320-9798

Fig 6. LED Output-2
A GPS fitted with the Robot section helps to get the exact location of the victim.
Fig 7. LED Output-3
This output is displayed in the PC as shown in Fig 6 that is being interfaced with the Robocar using Bluetooth.
Fig 8. PC Output

ISSN (Print): 2320-9798

V. APPLICATIONS
Robots can perform variety of functions independently. General-purpose robots may perform a variety of functions
simultaneously or they may take on different roles at different times of day.
This specific Rescue robot that has been designed for a specific purpose can be used for the following applications:
 In disaster zones, whether it natural or man-made disaster.

 In military applications to detect the presence of militants.
 In Rescue operations where human reach is not possible.
 In Medical applications to detect motion.
 In Warfield affected areas, to detect the presence   of bomb.
VI. CONCLUSION
The goal of this work was to provide a rescue robot for human detection in a disaster environment. Though, the existing
Urban Search and Rescue Robots are equipped with various sensors, but the problem with them is the cost and
complexity of circuit. The sensor used in the development of this project is easily available and cost effective.
In this paper, a new method for detecting surviving humans in destructed environments using simulated autonomous
robot has been proposed. The robot uses two sections for this operation and these two sections are inter-related to each
other. The first section is the Robot section, which moves into the debris and searches for the alive humans. The second
section is the Control section, which is with the Rescue team and used to control the movement of Robocar.
Adding more number of DC motors to the Robocar can further enhance this, so that the torque can be still improved. A
timer can be built-in and this complete system can be made automated.
REFERENCES
1. AfakSekmen, Ali S., Kawamura, Kazuhiko, and Wilkes, Mitch “An Application of Passive Human– Robot Interaction: Human Tracking Based
on Attention Distraction” IEEE, Vol. 32, No. 2, March 2002, PP. 248-259.
2. Binoy Shah and Howie Choset. "Survey on Urban Search and Rescue Robotics" Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan, Vol.22, No.5,
Page.582-586, 2004.
3. Carlos Marques, Pedro Lima, Rodrigo Ventura “Semi-autonomous robot for rescue operations” Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/RSJ International
Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, October 9 - 15, 2006, Beijing, China.
4. Casper, J. “Human-Robot Interactions during the Robot-Assisted Urban Search and Rescue Response at the World Trade Centre”, IEEE
Transactions, 2003, PP.367-385.
5. R. Fuksis, M. Greitans, E. Hermanis “Motion Analysis and Remote Control System using Pyro-electric Infrared Sensors” IEEE, 2008. No. 6(86),
PP. 69-72.
6. Kai-Rui Zhao, Xin-Min Wang, Van Li, and Xiang Yu, "A Life detection System for Special Rescuing Robots" IEEE, 2006.
7. Kun-Mu Chen, Jianping Zhang and Adam Norman “Microwave Life-Detection Systems for Searching Humans Under Earthquake Rubble or
Behind Barrier” IEEE Transactions, Biomedical Engineering, VOL.27, NO.1,  January 2000, PP. 105-114.
8. LV Xiaohu and LIU Yongxin, “A Bionic gait programming for Hexapod Robot,” ICIS 2009, pp. 1172-1175, November  2009 [The
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10. Research by Sandeep Bhatia, Hardeep Singh Dhillon and Nitin Kumar on “Alive Human Body Detection system using an  Autonomous Mobile
Rescue Robot”, N. India Conference (INDICON), 2011 Annual IEEE Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109 /INDCON. 2011.6139388 Publication
Year: 2011

Alive Human Detection in Disaster Zones

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ISSN(Online): 2320-9801

ISSN (Print): 2320-9798

International Journal of Innovative Research in Computer

Vol. 3, Special Issue 2, March 2015