Robotics in Search and Rescue (SAR) Operations: An Ethical and Design Perspective Framework for Response Phase
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Instead of an article, this manuscript as a review will be better and should be presented as such.
The manuscript should include an overview of various research projects, such as the mission of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), the IEEE Annual Workshop on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics.
Who formulated the laws of robotics? These are Isaac Asimov's old three laws of robotics.
It also proposed new laws of robotics that are aimed at people building robots, not just robots. These laws better reflect how the actual laws of robotics are implemented.
It is recommended to organize knowledge in the field of SAR, such as the types of tasks that have been proposed for rescue robots and the types of rescue robots.
In order to better understand the use of SAR during a disaster, it would be helpful to provide a general scenario of their actions.
Serpentine robots (or snake robots) have many potential applications as SARs. The manuscript did not include the developed robotic snakes ACM III, ACM-R2 and ACM-R3 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
How do people perceive the snake robot?
Studies show that people view these robots socially, that is, they may attribute the traits of being scary or unhelpful based on the way the robot looks and moves.
How can robotic snakes placed in a confined space act as a member of the rescue team?
How will snake rescue robots interact with trapped survivors and facilitate their care and comfort?
The concept of a robotic snake should take into account systems such as mobility, communications, control, sensors, power, and human-robot interaction (HRI).
How will the effectiveness of this snake robot be judged and what quantitative or qualitative metrics can be adopted?
What will be the SAR tasks in the intraoperative rescue system at different levels of command operations, equipment, training, and awareness?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We thank you for your thorough review of our manuscript “Robotics in Search and Rescue (SAR) Operations: An Ethical and Design Perspective Framework for response phase" which we submitted to MDPI. We appreciate the time and effort you put into reviewing our work.
Following careful consideration of all your comments and recommendations, the following changes have been made to the manuscript:
- Instead of an article, this manuscript as a review will be better and should be presented as such:
- Thank you for the comment. We have submitted the manuscript as a perspective article. As we are providing a perspective framework on ethical concerns by including snake robot design considerations for the SAR response phase, it is considered a perspective article more than a review. Further, only section 2 and section 3 present a thorough review of the concerned topic (state of the art).
- The manuscript should include an overview of various research projects, such as the mission of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), and the IEEE Annual Workshop on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics.
- Thank you for the comment. From our literature we might have missed these research projects, however, we have considered and discussed a few references such as INSARG guidelines 2020, the European ICARUS project, robots in the Fukushima accident, CMU snake robot for Zwentendorf nuclear power plant. We might have missed some projects, thank you for the suggestion. In the revised article we are including all your suggestions to improve the paper. (Revision made in section 1 from the line: 33 to 38)
- Who formulated the laws of robotics? These are Isaac Asimov's old three laws of robotics.
- It also proposed new laws of robotics that are aimed at people building robots, not just robots. These laws better reflect how the actual laws of robotics are implemented.
- Thank you for your comments. We have revised section 2.2. according to your suggestions (Revision made in section 2.2, from lines 121 to 146).
- It is recommended to organize knowledge in the field of SAR, such as the types of tasks that have been proposed for rescue robots and the types of rescue robots.
- To better understand the use of SAR during a disaster, it would be helpful to provide a general scenario of their actions.
- Thank you for the comments, we have revised by including categories and types of robots (with figure 1.) and included some text related to SAR (Revision made in section 2.3 from lines 234- 258).
- Serpentine robots (or snake robots) have many potential applications as SARs. The manuscript did not include the developed robotic snakes ACM III, ACM-R2 and ACM-R3 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
- Thank you for the suggestion, we have included a new section 3.3. Revision made from lines 415 to 433.
- How do people perceive the snake robot?
- Thank you for the comment, added a paragraph in section 2.3 from lines 285 to 298.
- Studies show that people view these robots socially, that is, they may attribute the traits of being scary or unhelpful based on the way the robot looks and moves.
- Thank you for the suggestion, we have included a new section 3.1. Revision made from lines 370 to 389.
- How can robotic snakes place in a confined space act as a member of the rescue team?
- Thank you for the comment, we have included a new section 3.2. Revision made from lines 390 to 400.
- How will snake rescue robots interact with trapped survivors and facilitate their care and comfort?
- Thank you for the comment. Revision made from lines 353 to 369.
- The concept of a robotic snake should take into account systems such as mobility, communications, control, sensors, power, and human-robot interaction (HRI).
- Thank you for the comment. We have discussed sensors in section 3 paragraph 2, and section 5.1. For communication, we have included new section 3.2 paragraph 2 from lines 401 to 414.
- HRI or interaction is included in section 3.1 paragraph 2 from lines 380 to 389.
- For power and control, a Revision was made in section 3 from 353 to 360.
- How will the effectiveness of this snake robot be judged and what quantitative or qualitative metrics can be adopted?
- Thank you for the comment, we have included new section 3.3. Effectiveness is included from lines 434 to 443.
- What will be the SAR tasks in the intraoperative rescue system at different levels of command operations, equipment, training, and awareness?
- Thank you for the comment, we revised section 2.3 from lines 234 to 252.
Thank you for your insightful comments. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any additional questions or comments.
Regards,
Hareesh Chitikena
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The review is surely interesting and rich of information. However, I suggest to improve the text with minor changes in order to correct the layout (e.g., spacing between figure caption and text) and to enrich the background with references to perspectives like value-sensitive design, which brings together ethical and design issues as in the title of the paper itself (it can be useful for the conclusions as well).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We thank you for your thorough review of our manuscript “Robotics in Search and Rescue (SAR) Operations: An Ethical and Design Perspective Framework for response phase" which we submitted to MDPI. We appreciate the time and effort you put into reviewing our work.
Following careful consideration of all your comments and recommendations, the following changes have been made to the manuscript:
- The review is surely interesting and rich in information.
- Thank you for your positive response.
- I suggest improving the text with minor changes to correct the layout.
- Thank you for the suggestion, we have made layout changes as per your suggestion.
- Enrich the background with references to perspectives like value-sensitive design.
- Thank you for the comment. We have now included more references related to this topic. Revision made in section 2.2. from lines 202 to 208.
Thank you for your insightful comments. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any additional questions or comments.
Regards,
Hareesh Chitikena
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I find the topic quite interesting and challenging.
I find the discussion difficult to follow. My impression is that there is a mix of different topics without a clear differentiation between them.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We thank you for your thorough review of our manuscript “Robotics in Search and Rescue (SAR) Operations: An Ethical and Design Perspective Framework for response phase" which we submitted to MDPI. We appreciate the time and effort you put into reviewing our work.
Following careful consideration of all your comments and recommendations, the following changes have been made to the manuscript:
- I find the topic quite interesting and challenging.
- Thank you for the positive response.
- I find the discussion difficult to follow. My impression is that there is a mix of different topics without a clear differentiation between them.
- Thank you for the comment. We have now included a few more sections and modified the text so that it can give more clarity to the readers.
Thank you for your insightful comments. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any additional questions or comments.
Regards,
Hareesh Chitikena
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors gave full and sufficient answers to all comments, questions and doubts.
