Today, human evacuation is typically managed by emergency personnel who direct and assist individuals to safety. Current methods can be slow, limited by human physical capabilities, and dangerous for the rescuers themselves. They can also struggle with accessibility issues, such as reaching people in difficult-to-access areas or those with mobility impairments.

While research has been done in the space of robot autonomy and rescue robot platforms little has been done in the space of human robot physical interaction integrating safety and path planning. In this work, we aim to define methods by which we can implement trajectories for robots to grasp and manipulate humans safely.

This research is on Physical Human Robotic interaction (pHRI), an intersection of robotics, controls, biomechanics, and modeling requiring knowledge across disciplines for a multifaceted approach to a more traditional robotics problem.