BRIN Investigates the Use of Nirawak Robotic Technology for Disaster Management

JAKARTA - The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) is exploring the potential of using Unmanned Vehicle (UxV) technology or unmanned vehicles for disaster management and logistics distribution.

Head of the BRIN Smart Mechatronics Research Center, Yanuandri Putrasari, explained that UxV includes unmanned vehicles on land, water, and air. Research on UxV is currently being developed to support more accurate monitoring of disaster-affected areas.

"Hopefully, in the future, UxV can distribute aid or logistics, so that this technology continues to be studied and researched so that it can support both incidental and long-term needs," said Yanuandri, quoted from the official BRIN website on Wednesday, December 17.

The utilization of UxV is considered very urgent to serve the Leading, Outer, and Lagging Areas (3T) with limited accessibility. Atma Jaya University researcher, Gregorius Airlangga, also emphasized that drones can be a potential solution to penetrate infrastructure barriers in remote areas.

"For the 3T area, there are still many challenges in terms of accessibility and inaccessibility. I am increasingly convinced that this UxV is needed to help logistics," said Gregorius.

3T areas often have heavy terrain such as mountains and dense forests that make the distribution of goods very expensive and slow. Therefore, the use of an intelligent control system on unmanned vehicles is expected to reduce the time for distributing basic needs.

BRIN hopes that the results of this research can trigger productivity and multidisciplinary collaboration between academics and technology practitioners in Indonesia. The main focus of this research is to create a robust logistics system through data-based decision making from the swarm of unmanned robots.