A Wireless Camera Node with Passive Self-righting Mechanism for Capturing Surrounding View

Abstract

Japan is a land of frequent earthquakes, and developing effective means for preventing and mitigating disasters in their aftermath is a matter of deep and widespread concern. The time and location of their occurrence is essentially unpredictable, and interest therefore centers on preventing and mitigating damage. A key prerequisite for effective mitigation is rapid, accurate appraisal of conditions in the stricken region. For this purpose, the development of systems for concurrent, parallel information gathering, capable of covering a broad range of affected areas and conditions, is critical. In the DDT Project, 'Development of Advanced Robots and Information Systems for Disaster Response.' of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), the development effort for rescue robots and other next-generation basic technologies for disaster prevention and mitigation has included the development of interlinked rescue robots, airborne vehicles, sensors, and other elements of disaster area information gathering technologies A related recent development has been the trend toward ubiquitous computing In parallel with these advances, the authors have developed an intelligent data carrier (IDC) for rescue, designed to support the search for victims immediately after an earthquake The rescue IDC is a small device with wireless radio communication capability, for installation in living environments. In the wake of an earthquake, this device can send out voice calls to any who might be trapped in the rubble and record their responses. With multiple deployments, the IDCs enable parallel searches for victims throughout the stricken area. In a separate study, In the wake of a disaster, however, the rescue IDCs may not be available where www.intechopen.com