Since opening its doors in 2018, the RAPID Facility has transformed how data is gathered, processed and saved in the aftermath of natural disasters. So far, this center has supported 80 field missions around the world (each mission shown here as a purple line).Rebecca Gourley/University of Washington
A first-of-its-kind center housed at the University of Washington has received a $6 million renewal grant from the National Science Foundation.
The RAPID Facility offers a way for researchers to get their hands on state-of-the-art equipment to study the effects of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes. This facility contains more than 100 unique instruments, including a variety of drones and a remote-controlled boat that uses sonar to scan what's happening underwater.
"Before RAPID, it was ad hoc, DIY or sometimes BYO (bring your own) equipment to a reconnaissance mission," said facility director Joseph Wartman, a UW professor in the civil and environmental engineering department. "The few people who had reconnaissance instruments, such as lidar, tended to be very overburdened in the sense that they were asked to participate in numerous missions. It didn't leave space and room for others to join."
Since opening its doors in 2018, the RAPID Facility has transformed how data is gathered, processed and saved in the aftermath of natural disasters. So far, this center has supported 80 field missions around the world, including helping investigate the Champlain Towers collapse and using a massive shake table in Japan to develop new methods to assess the structural integrity of buildings after an earthquake.
Use the interactive visualization below to explore all 80 of the RAPID Facility's deployments:
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The NSF renewal grant provides this center with four additional years of funding and a 30% budget increase to advance the natural hazards reconnaissance field through new initiatives.
The RAPID Facility is part of a larger network of experimental research facilities at seven universities across the country. These centers were founded in 2016 through the NSF's Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure program.
"We have everything we need to start making even more significant breakthroughs in years to come," Wartman said. "I am very optimistic about what will come from the RAPID. Even in the first few months of the renewal, I've seen exciting uses of data and innovations in reconnaissance."
