A recent NIST media release states "At the recommendation of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this month asked ASTM International to work with NIST and other stakeholders to develop voluntary consensus standards for urban search and rescue (US&R) robots." Standard specifications for at least 13 types of search and rescue robots will be developed through a series of workshops. Initial work suggested there would more than 100 individual performance requirements in the standard specification ranging from communications to sensing. Details about the project and information on participating can be found in an additional press release from ASTM International and from the NIST Urban Search and Rescue Robot Performance Standards project page.