The Italian town Amatrice with a population of 2640 was almost totally devastated by the earthquake that hit on August 24, 2016 v 3:56 a.m. Sadly, 232 people died there. The team of the TRADR project was asked for assitance with searching two damaged mediaval churches in a one-day mission in Amatrice on September 1, 2016. It was neccessary to prepare the robots, software and auxiliary material during 36 hours and set off for Italy. In the TRADR team there were the guarantor of the Robotics field of study in the Cybernetics and Robotics master programme, prof. Václav Hlaváč (second from the left in the first row at the figure above) and PhD student Vladimír Kubelka (last at the right).
In the mission two mobile robots (Czech Technical University, La Sapienza University Rome), two bigger drones Falcon (Ascending Technologies München) and one smaller drone DJI Phantom 5 (La Sapienza University Rome, Fraunhofer Institute Sant Augustin) participated. The robots were cooperating during the research of San Francesco and San Agostino churches.
The mission was assessed as highly successful. Useful data were captured, and are now being processed and handed over to the Italian fire fighters and to the Italian Ministry of Culture gradually. The data and field experiences are also very valuable for the TRADR research/development.
