Squishy Robotics Delivers Innovative Solutions From the Sky

Noting that disaster rescue can result in significant loss of life for both victims and first responders, Alice Merner Agogino, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, sought a solution. She and Deniz Dogruer co-founded Squishy Robotics, a Berkeley-based company creating impact-resistant, customizable robots for public safety, military, and industrial use via airdrops from drones, helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft.

Squishy Robotics is a spinoff from UC Berkeley and NASA research on planetary probes designed to survive drops onto planetary surfaces for scientific monitoring. The robots are ball-shaped skeletons made of rods and elastic cables, functioning as a "tension network" that Agogino says dissipates the force across the network according to the principle of tensegrity – short for tensile integrity.

Agogino, Squishy Robotics CEO, highlights these rapidly deployable mobile sensor robots provide fast access to hazardous environments, collecting data at disaster scenes to help first responders assess dangers like toxic gas leaks, plan their approach, and prevent deaths.

Key Features in Squishy Robotics

Squishy Robotics offers remote air monitoring with its 4-GasPLUS, a drone-droppable or throwable 4-gas sensor equipped with cameras and GPS. This is especially useful for hazardous materials and confined space responses.

"The 4-GasPLUS with LEL, O2, CO, H2S sensors, six cameras, and GPS, can be dropped by drones or hand-thrown into position to provide persistent ground-based monitoring and rapid initial assessment,” notes Dogruer, Squishy Robotics COO.

Squishy Robotics uses its own mesh network. Its data can be merged with data from installed sensors to improve overall awareness, enhanced by AI and machine learning.

The device has a battery life of over 12 hours, operates between -4ºF and 122ºF, and supports payload acceleration of 3x to 5x. A 360-degree pan-tilt camera provides panoramic situational awareness, with day/night capabilities and customizable zoom.

Including a stationary robot. It weighs 2.5 pounds. It is self-righting at +/- 45 degrees, has a node-to-node range of 400 meters, and a drop height of 1,000 feet.

Payloads can be customized to include alternate sensors, communication devices, or third-party hardware.

The CommsPLUS, customized to carry and deploy Silvus Technologies Streamcaster radios, enables a Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) wireless mesh technology to be delivered when and where it is needed.

Evaluating Resiliency and Safety Measures

Squishy Robotics conducted a rigorous multi-day test event assessing the resilience of its sensors’ comminutions capabilities in operationally relevant environments at Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) Disaster City, which performs a third-party assessment of public safety technology.

Subject matter experts (SMEs) praised the technology for keeping personnel away from hazardous chemicals due to its remote capabilities. SMEs agreed the robots are ideal for large-scale incidents like train derailments, industrial HAZMAT releases, and highway incidents.

They were impressed with the rapid deployment, noting the quick setup is useful for sensitive locations needing fast response and assessment. SMEs also appreciated the strong signal strength in large disaster scenarios using a mesh network and recommended adding a signal strength indicator on the robot and user interface for ease of use.

Squishy Robotics’ R&D efforts have been supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Public Safety Research Group.

For public safety use, Squishy Robotics has worked closely with Southern Manatee Fire & Rescue (SFMR) in Florida and the San Jose Fire Department as pilot partners, as well as the Tulsa Fire Department, Utah State Fire Marshal's Office, and Olathe Fire Department.

In 2022, SFMR became one of Squishy Robotics’ first test agencies.

SFMR supports the use of technology, with hazmat playing a significant role in those efforts, says Rich Gatanis, firefighter/hazmat technician, UAS coordinator, adding stakeholder buy-in is also important.

“In the beginning, this was a very crude system that lacked real-world adaptation in order to be able to deploy these,” says Gatanis. “Hazmat techs and teams are very picky about the types of sensors they have and how they use them. We're checking them or calibrating them constantly. It’s important these sensors are working in real-time and accurate.”

At first, SFMR crews noted it took upwards of 10 minutes to get sensor readings from the Squishy Robotics as opposed to handheld sensors.

“That’s not good for us,” Gatanis says. “We need rapid answers to atmospheric conditions. They worked on that their communication pieces and how that information is pushed back to us at the command post or whoever's holding the laptop. We're getting those readings in seconds now.”

Squishy Robotics was deployed in a recent train derailment involving 60,000 gallons of liquid propane. SFMR crews dropped the Squishy Robotics along the railroad tracks, using them to monitor air quality while the rail car was being righted.

“The nice thing about these systems is not having to put people in harm's way,” Gatanis notes.

Currently, the department has two, with plans to increase the numbers soon.

“We send the old robots back and they give us better equipment to test after they've fixed some of the bugs we found,” says Gatanis.

The department uses the 4-GasPLUS sensor payload, which Gatanis says is ‘plug and play’.

“We like to use the term ‘firefighter-proof,” he says. “We typically look at where the least common denominator is in whose hands can I put this in and it’s not going to be a challenge?”

Gatanis says the department seeks to constantly expand its technology capabilities, such as adding ground vehicles.

“Any time we can put sensors on objects that are not humans, we’re going to go after that,” he says, adding that SFMR crews are eager to work with Squishy Robotics on future technology iterations.

The San Jose (California) Fire Department uses Squishy Robotics’ 4-GasPLUS sensor atmospheric monitoring unit.

In onboarding Squishy Robotics, the City of San Jose had to work through insurance and user agreement challenges with its legal team to find a pathway that satisfied all parties.

Like others, Shawn Tacklind, Battalion Chief, Bureau of Field Operations Safety Officer, DHS FEMA USAR CATF-3, Incident Support Team, appreciates the benefits the technology brings in situational awareness, overall scene assessment, victim survivability and responder safety during response and recovery efforts.

“Partnering with companies like Squishy Robotics allows fire department personnel to influence product development and improvements based on feedback provided,” Tacklind says.

Incorporated Into Training

Squishy Robotics was incorporated into the Hazardous Incident Team’s semi-annual and quarterly training sessions.

As part of its 2022 Demonstration and Testing Partnership Agreement with Squishy Robotics, the San Jose Fire Department received two sensors for remote atmospheric monitoring, a laptop to run the Squishy Robotics user interface, in-person training, and tech support. As software and hardware updates have come out, equipment has been updated as well.

“As a large metropolitan department, we respond to more than 110,000 calls for service per year,” Tacklind says. “This has given us the ability to use the Squishy technology in real-world events. This call volume provides us the ability to give true use case feedback.”

Tacklind says his department appreciates the flexibility to drop the robot from a drone, hand deploys, throw it from an aerial ladder into a confined space, hazardous materials spill, and other scenarios.

“The ability to use this ruggedized and highly durable technology helps me as an incident commander to make critical, timely, but informed decisions on life safety of victims, civilians, and firefighters,” says Tacklind.

“This real-time atmospheric value information is critical for the incident commander to know if this is a body recovery or a true rescue. This technology adds an additional layer of information and safety for our personnel and victims. Another added value of the technology is the mesh network.”

Robots and atmospheric monitoring is one of the first steps the San Jose Fire Department takes on any hazardous materials call out, Tacklind says.

 “We have even worked with our Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) personnel to incorporate Squishy robots and atmospheric monitoring in confined space and trench rescues and training,” he says. “This added ability has allowed us to have immediate monitoring of the confined space and helps to shape the rescue profile of the trapped victim(s).”

The Tulsa (Oklahoma) Fire Department has tested the 4-gas sensor/ ball with the adsorption nest for long freefalls from the small unmanned system for hazmat response and air quality detection.

“We continue to explore new use cases and avenues,” says Gabriel Graveline, EMS Officer: CRT/Robotics.

Graveline concurs that keeping first responders and citizens safe is a driving factor by maximizing the use of robotics to gain useful intelligence without having to put a human in harm’s way.

Squishy Robotics’ platforms and abilities continue to evolve, Graveline says, adding the company’s team works hard to provide a platform that is user-friendly even in high-stress environments.

Tulsa will continue to work with Squishy Robotics as it rolls out new technology to expand use to crisis response, mass casualty, deployments to disasters, as well as local calls.

“Technology like this gives us options. We never would have found it had we been hesitant to try something new and out of the norm,” says Graveline, advising other first responders to do their best to inform stakeholders that collaboration is the key to progress.

Squishy Robotics on Climate-Related Incidents

In terms of climate-related incidents, immediate action is required to mitigate its change and impact, Agogino notes.

“Methane (CH4) is responsible for up to one-third of the global warming experienced today,” she says. “Methane traps more heat in the atmosphere per molecule than carbon dioxide (CO2), so methane becomes 80 times more harmful than CO2 for 20 years after it is released to the atmosphere.”

Under development is a methane detection robot designed to improve the ability to identify and characterize the size and monitor methane emissions in remote or large locations at lower costs.

“In addition to environmental gains, worker safety will be improved, thereby decreasing workman's compensation claims and insurance costs,” Agogino says.

Squishy Robotics is putting rotors inside a stationary tensegrity robot to create an aerial/ground hybrid system capable of performing low-level aerial flying or maneuvers such as hopping over a fence. Next in line: the development of a floating robot to be used in flood-prone areas.

Mobile robots are designed to be remotely controlled from a safe distance or walk alongside or in front of first responders along rugged terrain or slopes using paired-cable actuation.

The company is developing a new sensor payload to be carried by the stationary, mobile, and rotor robots to provide onboard steerable optical or imaging cameras and gas sensors for early wildfire detection and monitoring.