Think Global, Fly Local

By Patrick Meier

First responders during disasters are not the United Nations or the Red Cross. The real first responders, by definition, are the local communities; always have been, always will be. So the question is: can robotics empower local communities to respond and recover both faster and better? I believe the answer is Yes.

But lets look at the alternative. As we’ve seen from recent disasters, the majority of teams that deploy with aerial robotics (UAVs) do so from the US, Europe and Australia. The mobilization costs involved in flying a professional team across the world—not to mention their robotics equipment—is not insignificant. And this doesn’t even include the hotel costs for a multi-person team over the course of a mission. When you factor in these costs on top of the consulting fees owed to professional international robotics teams, then of course the use of aerial robotics versus space robotics (satellites) becomes harder to justify.

There is also an important time factor. The time it takes for international teams to obtain the necessary export/import permits and customs clearance can be highly unpredictable. More than one international UAV team that (self) deployed to Nepal after the tragic 2015 Earthquake had their robotics platforms held up in customs for days. And of course there’s the question of getting regulatory approval for robotics flights. Lastly, international teams (especially companies and start-up's) may have little to no prior experience working in the country they’re deploying to; they may not know the culture or speak the language. This too creates friction and can slow down a humanitarian robotics mission.

What if you had fully trained teams on the ground already? Not an international team, but a local expert robotics team that obviously speaks the local language, understands local customs and already has a relationship with the country’s Civil Aviation Authority. A local team does not need to waste time with export/import permits or customs clearance; doesn’t need expensive international flights or weeks' worth of hotel accommodations. They’re on site, and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Not only would this response be faster, it would be orders of magnitudes cheaper and more sustainable to carry through to the recovery and reconstruction phase.

In sum, we need to co-create local Flying Labs with local partners including universities, NGOs, companies and government partners. Not only would these Labs be far more agile and rapid vis-a-vis disaster response efforts, they would also be far more sustainable and their impact more scalable than deploying international robotics teams. This is one of the main reasons why WeRobotics is looking to co-create and connect a number of Flying Labs in disaster prone countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America. With these Flying Labs in place, the cost of rapidly acquiring high quality aerial imagery will fall significantly. Think Global, Fly Local.

Thanks to to Sentinel and CartONG for their pictures used in this blog.