Robot description ontology and disaster scene description ontology: analysis of necessity and scope in rescue infrastructure context

This work intends to identify the necessity and scope of developing ontology standards for describing rescue robot features and for describing disaster scenarios in the context of search and rescue effort coordination. In recent years robot platforms are being designed for aiding rescue operations through offering capabilities of sensing and manipulating remote regions by reaching far inside fragile and uncertain environments without risking the lives of the rescue workers. However, there is still no standard basis to describe the robot capabilities or to describe a disaster scenario in an unambiguous way to aid processing by human or machines for intelligent decision making or on-site rescue coordination purposes. Thus, the relative effectiveness of the available platforms for a particular situation cannot be compared on a rational basis. As a result, incorporation of robot platforms is likely to increase the complexity of the already difficult task of on-site decision making for rescue coordination. The current work identifies some of the necessities and benefits for developing such description standards. Suggested outlines of some necessary aspects of robot description ontology and scenario description ontology are also discussed.