New 'Gizmos' Designed to Save Lives

Emergency workers swarming the scene of a disaster may soon enlist the help of “Gizmo,” a mobile wireless communications robot developed by a student.

Javier Rodriguez Molina, Gizmo's lead designer and a graduate student in electrical engineering at the University of California San Diego, said his contraption could help collect and transmit real-time communications in emergency situations, among dozens of other tasks.

“In almost any emergency, the most important thing is immediate, accurate information,” Rodriguez said. “Gizmo will eventually be able to go anywhere on its own and send back in real time whatever information you might need."

One Gizmo costs about $1,000, which is relatively inexpensive for a robot, and each can create a wireless network 650 feet (200 meters) in diameter. The robot's operators can control it via cell phone, laptop or a gaming joystick hooked to a computer.

Rodriguez initially designed the toy-sized, four-wheeled robot to venture into situations too dangerous for rescue workers, such as collapsed buildings, hostage crisis or terrorist attacks — but it could do much more. Future models may be built even smaller or as large as a full sized truck.

In addition, anything from high definition cameras to a sample-collecting arm can be hooked onto it.

"People see Gizmo and immediately think of a new idea for what it can do," he said, noting that he envisions the robot as a security guard, archaeologist and even a spelunker. "I'm sure it has important uses that we haven't even thought of yet."

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