Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic is a reminder that modern society is still susceptible to multiple types of natural or man-made disasters, which motivates the need to improve resiliency through technological advancement. This article focuses on robotics and the role it can play towards providing resiliency to disasters. The progress in this domain brings the promise of effectively deploying robots in response to life-threatening disasters, which includes highly unstructured setups and hazardous spaces inaccessible or harmful to humans. This article discusses the maturity of robotics technology and explores the needed advances that will allow robots to become more capable and robust in disaster response measures. It also explores how robots can help in making human and natural environments preemptively more resilient without compromising long-term prospects for economic development. Despite its promise, there are also concerns that arise from the deployment of robots. Those discussed relate to safety considerations, privacy infringement, cyber-security, and financial aspects, such as the cost of development and maintenance as well as impact on employment.