RoboTurK Takes Video of Emergency Sites
Writte by William Cox the 01/05/2008
The RoboTurK system, based on Microsoft Robotics Studio, is designed to be an autonomous system for taking video surveillance of emergency areas. The motivation fur such a system is events like the 1999 earthquake in Turkey, which took the lives of over 45,000 people. The RoboTurK system will enable emergency crews to quickly assess the damage even when communication systems break down.
RobotTurk is a prototype Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) equipped with a
camera that is capable of streaming live video of disaster struck
areas to ground command stations. The helicopter carries onboard an
eBox compute-unit that runs Microsoft Robotics Studio, allowing the
robot to execute specific command issued by ground statation or to
auto-fly or safely land.
The system is designed around a standard RC helicopter and uses Microsoft Virtual Earth for mapping and to display realtime video of a location.
You can keep up with the progress of the RoboTurK project at their website.
