When a building collapses after a rocket barrage, time is of the essence. The response involves locating the dead and missing and figuring out how to get them out. But before a single human is sent into a damaged building, a non-human—a drone—is sent in to scope out the scenario.
On June 19, an Iranian ballistic missile hit Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva, seriously wounding six people.
“When the missile hit Soroka, our headquarters shook, two kilometers away from the scene,” said Hagai Balshai, CEO of Robotican Ltd., which is based in the Beersheva suburb of Omer. “The moment we heard that a missile hit Soroka, a drone pilot and I jumped in the car with two systems and six Rooster drones and drove immediately to the scene.
“Unfortunately, our rooster is very busy right know. Coordinating with the Home Front Command, we brought the drones, which either roll along the ground or hover in the air, and are sent in hover mode around the building to assess exactly what level of destruction we were dealing with.”
The Rooster drone is an unusual one, encased by a “cage” made of polymers and with the ability to fly, roll through a building or stand still and transmit data.
The search at Soroka began with an assessment flight over the building and around the walls. After identifying entry points, in this case broken windows on each floor, the drone went through the windows and into “roll mode,” because flying and hovering expends more energy and uses up its battery.
“We teamed up with the Home Front Command staff at the scene,” Balshai explained. “The cage allowed the Rooster to roll and sometimes fly over the rubble in the building. It rolled over shards of glass, slabs of concrete and pieces of aluminum. Even while there was intense smoke and the fire department was still working the fire, the Rooster went through, room by room, floor by floor. Each drone was equipped with a thermal camera that could identify humans, dead or alive.”
Balshai said the Rooster could also carry sensors that “sniff out” hazardous materials, detect radiation leaks and even have an oxygen sensor to indicate whether the level in the area would be dangerous for human rescuers.
The IDF Home Front Command led the search. Every 15 minutes, the Roosters were exchanged and batteries were recharged. If a drone’s battery succumbs while it is in roll mode, it has the ability to roll itself out of the building and other drones can find it, Balshai said.
A spokesperson from the Israel Drones Search and Rescue Unit, a 1,500-member volunteer-staffed organization, said that whatever thermal drones and aerial documentation tools they have were on hand for security and rescue agencies this past week.
“Since the escalation with Iran began, our volunteers have refrained from field operations because of insurance concerns,” the spokesperson said. “However, the organization’s equipment was made available to the Home Front Command rescue units.”
The director of the Israel Drones Search and Rescue Unit said that, unfortunately, they simply do not have enough drones to loan to the IDF.
“The recent period has exposed critical gaps in the state’s drone preparedness for emergencies,” he continued. “We have drawn many conclusions and insights from our operational experience so far, and we are working to implement them.”
Companies such as Robotican have been filling the gap.
In Bat Yam
On June 15, an Iranian ballistic missile scored a direct hit on an apartment building in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv. Nine people were killed and many were wounded.
Xtend, a company that specializes in drones driven by AI with autonomous capability, is based in Tel Aviv with global subsidiaries. Its various drones perform multiple missions—some better for indoor and subterranean missions, others for outdoors. These drones were flying through the entire Bat Yam neighborhood to look for people who were missing.
According to Gal Nir, chief commercial officer for Xtend, the company has been participating in voluntary search and rescue missions for years. It helped find people buried in the earthquake in Turkey in February 2023 and was credited with saving lives. Now it is standing by with two teams and several systems ready to respond to incidents throughout Israel.
For building collapses, Xtend uses two types of indoor drones
“The first is a massive drone that scans building by building and gets into wide spaces like living rooms and corridors,” said Nir. “Then, a smaller drone, just 35 by 45 centimeters [13.78 by 17.72 inches], that has the ability to fly in the dark and into small spaces under beds and into crawl spaces. It also can skid across the floors like a small RC [radio-controlled] car.”
These drones, developed to function in subterranean spaces in terror tunnels, are tremendously helpful in performing search and rescue operations.
In one instance, a missing woman was presumed to have been trapped inside her safe room. The small drone went in through an opening on the balcony and searched the house. The family was relieved to find out she was not anywhere in the damaged home. Eventually, the family located her. She had been brought to a hospital by first responders and was recovering from her injuries.
“We are doing this for our brothers and sisters,” Nir said. “This is not about selling or training. We are proud to have developed this technology and to have personnel who can help. Every single life we save is like saving the whole world.”
Robotican is also dispatching search and rescue drones on a voluntary basis. Balshai said that he has dispatched three teams, each stationed in a different area of the country, with Rooster drones for search and rescue efforts. One unit has been operating in Haifa, an area frequently attacked.
In Beersheva on June 19, after the six-story Soroka hospital building was thoroughly searched by Rooster drones, it was determined that no humans—alive or dead—were trapped inside the building.
“Fortunately, miraculously, the building had been fully evacuated and we came up with no one inside,” said Balshai. “Patients and staff had been removed in time. Meanwhile, the drones went quickly to all the places throughout the hospital that would have taken many hours of dangerous physical searching.
“The hope for all of us is that there will no longer be a need for this, but this is why we are dedicated to bringing this technology to the fore. I was amazed at how well it worked and how efficient the system was,” Balshai said. “Even with many years of developing robotics, I was in awe.”