Robohub.org
 

UN discusses humanitarian uses of drones


by
17 November 2014



share this:
BW-photo-of-drones-for-humanitarian-purposes_800_533_80

At a recent meeting at the United Nations, UN and UNICEF officials met with NGOs including Red Cross, food and peacekeeping groups, to discuss setting up a network of humanitarian uses for drones and to inform, educate and expose all to possible uses.

The UN meeting was initiated to show UN officials what is going on out there, how the challenges are being met, what rules, regulations and code of conduct is required, what fears and concerns have been expressed, and what humanitarian uses can be addressed by the use of aerial robots (drones).

Five ways drones can make a contribution are:

  • Peacekeeping
  • Cargo delivery
  • Crisis mapping
  • Humanitarian response
  • Wildlife protection

Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine featured a new lifeguard-launched life-preserver dropping copter from RTS Labs. A video shot in the Caspian Sea by Iranian inventor Amin Rigi shows the copter reaching a swimmer in 22 seconds, four times faster than a lifeguard… just one of many novel humanitarian uses of non-lethal drones.

Humanitarian UAV Network has been established to share information and resources — even a Flipboard section has been set up on the topic!

Patrick Meier spearheaded the UN meeting and is the author of a new book, Digital Humanitarians: How big data is changing the face of humanitarian response, which will be available early in 2015. The chapter descriptions are right out of the global news: Crowd Computing Social Media; Crowd Computing Satellite and Aerial Imagery; AI for Disaster Response; Verifying Big Data with AI; and Dictators versus Digital Humanitarians.



tags: , , ,


Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.
Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.





Related posts :



Researchers are teaching robots to walk on Mars from the sand of New Mexico

  02 Sep 2025
Researchers are closer to equipping a dog-like robot to conduct science on the surface of Mars

Engineering fantasy into reality

  26 Aug 2025
PhD student Erik Ballesteros is building “Doc Ock” arms for future astronauts.

RoboCup@Work League: Interview with Christoph Steup

and   22 Aug 2025
Find out more about the RoboCup League focussed on industrial production systems.

Interview with Haimin Hu: Game-theoretic integration of safety, interaction and learning for human-centered autonomy

and   21 Aug 2025
Hear from Haimin in the latest in our series featuring the 2025 AAAI / ACM SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants.

AIhub coffee corner: Agentic AI

  15 Aug 2025
The AIhub coffee corner captures the musings of AI experts over a short conversation.

Interview with Kate Candon: Leveraging explicit and implicit feedback in human-robot interactions

and   25 Jul 2025
Hear from PhD student Kate about her work on human-robot interactions.

#RoboCup2025: social media round-up part 2

  24 Jul 2025
Find out what participants got up to during the second half of RoboCup2025 in Salvador, Brazil.

#RoboCup2025: social media round-up 1

  21 Jul 2025
Find out what participants got up to during the opening days of RoboCup2025 in Salvador, Brazil.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence