Whilst small drones would be good for reconnaissance type activities, say scouting for victims after a building collapse or in a fire or flood, they would struggle to open a door, or loft a beam off a victim, or even carry the victim to safety.
Day you have a partial building collapse after a gas explosion. You may suspect there is an injured person inside bit if the building is so unstable it could collapse at any moment it is difficult to send a team in for somebody who might already be dead when the rescue.team.cpild end up.dead as well.
With robots there is no such worries so they can be sent in on."suicide missions"
