 The Terminator is the iconic rescue robot. Its mission is to save people, the planet, and ultimately the species. Of course, it's science fiction. Runs faster, it's stronger, endures more than any human. The real robots began with cleanup of the first nuclear accident. These were developed to explore, then to work with tools and to perform the tasks that finally closed that event. The story in the world is that these accidents will never happen again, but robots had a great role at Chernobyl and robots was unprepared for what was needed at Fukushima where they're being developed and used for years and years yet to come. A real advantage is underwater where robots were the only possibility to discover Air France 447, then to find those parts on the ocean bottom and ultimately to recover the flight recorder. There are even greater roles in the undersea disasters like capping, leaking, oil well, where the only thing that we can see and the only thing that we can do is buy the means of these machines that go where we cannot. For rescue in underground mines, robots can go further, faster, to find downed miners. They can operate in the dust smoke, explosive gases and risks that human rescuers cannot. However, they don't have the advantage of GPS so they have to sense where they are in order to determine where they're going, what turns to make, how to do those actions and also where they can go and where they cannot. So these machines are fantastic at mapping, knowing where they are, knowing where they're going, finding people, but they don't make the judgments about degree of injury or how to handle whether to handle or high-level decisions. These search and rescue robots are highly successful, particularly in wilderness search. One of the favorites is rescuing a window washer high on a building after which the government declared the Drones for Good program. Even more injuries will be prevented than responded to. Automation technology particularly prevents accidents in the very young and the older drivers like me. The resistances are things like concern for possible injury, liability. What does it take to develop these machines, how to infuse them in operation, but all that is being overcome. No robot today is anywhere close to the skill of a baby. It's why it's necessary to develop the mobility technology, the manipulation, better sensing, planning, and to integrate those into the many types of machines required. Initially the motivations were hazard, but now most of it is efficiency, productivity, in some cases profit. That the robots yet to come may include interaction with infectious disease, perhaps to isolate, to sterilize, to treat and transport and for purposes from mountain rescue to fire response. Always, always the work on the world and rescue will be by humans. These robots are just the new tools for saving people and the planet.