Reaching the injured in time in desperate circumstances such as earthquakes or terrorist bombings is often unlikely. In the future, however, automation may help. Researchers around the world are looking at robotics to augment or even lead rescue efforts.

In Australia, for instance, robotic mining machines developed by the government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization are not only assisting rescuers trying to locate miners trapped after explosions or cave-ins (an average of two miners a month die in Australian mines), they will soon be laying explosives, going underground after blasting to stabilize mine roofs, and mining areas where it's impossible for humans to work or even survive.

In the United States, scientists at Sandia National Laboratory think they've found a better way to locate skiers, snowboarders or hikers buried under an avalanche, where rescuers have as little as 30 minutes to find victims before suffocation or hypothermia occurs.

"Yelling and pointing are probably not the most efficient ways to conduct a rapid search," said Sandia researcher Rush Robinett, describing the usual near-panic between searchers on the slopes. Robinett believes he has a better, if unconventional, approach.

Computationally, he said, finding a snow-buried skier is remarkably similar to locating the point source of a chemical or biological attack. His group's recently developed computer program, which provides group intelligence for a swarm of mini-robots to rapidly pinpoint a source of contagion, can also be used by a group of humans carrying mini-computers, gps receivers and simple radio equipment to find a skier buried in the avalanche.

In Robinett's computer simulations, searchers using a "swarm" algorithm called "Distributed Optimization" found avalanche victims four times faster than simulations of any published search scheme currently in use.

"That's with conditions as simple as possible," said Robinett. In more complicated situations, where rocks and trees or depth of snow presented obstacles, Robinett said the Sandia algorithm was even faster.

Designed primarily for use by the military, the search algorithm enables cockroach-sized robots to "talk" to each other through radio transmitters and home in on targets far more quickly than searchers using more conventional means.

Robinett's swarming technique relies on neither a central intelligence telling the searchers what to do nor the intuition of individuals. Instead, each robot continually informs the others of its position and the strength of signal received at that position from the sought-for source. The steady stream of data from multiple sources allows each member to continually refine the direction of its search. The same algorithms, said Robinett, can be used by human searchers to locate buried skiers because skiers in avalanche country already carry radio beacons as standard policy.

Sandia isn't the only government lab fascinated by the possibilities of robo-rescue. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is so interested in promoting the technology that it recently held the world's first competition for search-and-rescue robots as part of the annual conference of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence in Austin, Texas, in early August.

The robo-competition, which attracted six teams from college laboratories around the country, tested how smart the "brains" of several electronic lifesavers were when confronted by nist's "urban ruin" test course, a custom 60- by 60-foot portable devastation simulator.

The idea is that machines can work faster, longer and in places humans can't reach. One of the entries, for instance, was a skateboard-sized machine equipped with digital cameras and rotating treads capable of crawling into tight, dark spaces inaccessible to humans. Robots were to advance by navigating an increasingly more difficult, concrete block-strewn course meant to simulate an earthquake-damaged building. Though not nearly as complex as an actual disaster site, the course nevertheless is the first step in identifying problems. Ultimately, nist wants to use the course to establish standards for all search-and-rescue robots as the technology moves out of laboratories.

During the competition, points were awarded to machines capable of climbing stairs and ramps, avoiding holes, and finding and leaving a survival package near victims (in this case mannequins equipped with heating pads to simulate the warmth of a human body) before exiting te structure. The robots were to avoid those mannequins without heating pads, which simulated corpses. nist got help from Japanese scientists who have become serious about developing robotic technologies to aid rescue efforts at major urban disasters since the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people and injured 35,000.

Firefighters and first responders are getting research help from other than government quarters. Students in Lansing, Mich., have been working with local firefighters to invent an emergency safety device called the Rescuer.

The unit, the product of a Pattengill Middle School assignment asking students to solve a practical problem in the community, is designed to help ems teams find the site of an emergency in crowded neighborhoods and multiple unit dwellings by setting off a flashing light and an alarm.

"Before, we would have to wave for an ambulance," said co-inventor Casey Elliston, 13, whose brother Troy, 10, suffers from a heart condition. The unit, a 6- by 6-inch box containing a switch and buzzer, is meant to be installed behind a standard porch light. When the wall switch in the house that controls the porch light is turned on, the box emits an alarm and flashes the light to alert neighbors that someone inside is in trouble.

The project was inspired by the Award for Community Innovation, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Bayer Corp., which invites teams of eighth-graders throughout the country to identify a problem in their community, investigate it, then come up with an innovative, scientifically sound solution. The Rescuer was named one of 10 finalists from 500 national entries in the annual competition, earning the team a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida.

While the team didn't win first prize, Elliston and her co-inventors Tu Nguyen, Adam Cantu and Colleen Jones are applying for a patent. Meanwhile, they've raised $300,000 in donations of time and material, principally from Local 665 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and hope to have 100 of the units installed in the homes of Lansing's ailing elderly.