Development and control of a military rescue robot for casualty extraction task

Abstract

This paper presents the development and control methodology of a military rescue robot for a casualty extraction task. The new rescue robot (HURCULES) equipped with electric actuators for the casualty extraction task on the battle field is introduced. In this paper, mechanical designs of the HURCULES are described in detail. One of the noticeable features in the mechanical design is to use the worm gear in the joint to maintain the safety of the casualty even with power‐off and to reduce the energy through a selected operating mode. Moreover, unlike the upper body of a conventional humanoid robot, the chest plate is installed and used to properly distribute the casualty’s weight to the dual‐arm manipulator and the chest plate when carrying the wounded person. The HURCULES is valuable because the rescue robots for use on the battle field are very rare. And, the HURCULES is the first rescue robot for use on the battle field in South Korea. Primarily, a semiautonomous control strategy is applied to the HURCULES. The maneuvering stability of the HURCULES is needed when approaching and escaping a casualty while maneuvering on uneven terrain, and it maintains autonomously by the HURCULES. A variety of maneuvering experiments on various terrains were conducted, and satisfactory results for the casualty extraction task were obtained. In particular, the field experiments in this paper were performed at an accredited test site. Besides, additional experiments were conducted to enhance the field applicability.

ResQbot 2.0: An Improved Design of a Mobile Rescue Robot with an Inflatable Neck Securing Device for Safe Casualty Extraction

“…While this casualty extraction procedure seems to be flexible, feasible, and mimics how a normal person handles a casualty, medical safety remains an unsolved issue as this design does not stabilise the sensitive areas, including the casualty's spine, neck, and head. [29]. We found that there are at least three safety concerns in the typical humanoid-type robot construction procedure, the impact during the casualty scooping process could possibly bend the casualty's body sideways, the lifting process could make the casualty's body bend forward, and provide minimal support for the casualty's head and neck during the transportation phase.…”

“…In this section, we present an overview of the existing mobile rescue robots designed for casualty extraction. The summary of major contributions to the field of casualty extraction is depicted in Figure 1 [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31].…”

“…Its upper torso is equipped with a heavy-duty dual-arm manipulator built on top of a mobile base with tank tracks on its thighs and calves. The battlefield extraction assist robot (BEAR) developed by Vecna Technologies [6,7], the combat robotic nursing assistant (cRoNA) [8] from Hstar Technologies [33], and the humanoid rescue robot for calamity response (HURCULES) robot [29] developed by the Agency for Defense Development, South Korea [34,35] are examples of a semi-humanoid form mobile robot platform, designed and developed specifically for casualty-extraction procedures (see Figure 1, BEAR, cRoNA, HURCULES). Compared to all previous designs, these robots are designed to be highly agile while performing casualty extraction using their arms by scooping, lifting up, and carrying the casualty (see Figure 2a).…”

“…In [29], the authors highlight that one of the noticeable features in the mechanical design of the HURCULES robot is to use the worm gear in the joint to maintain the safety of the casualty even with the power off and to reduce the energy through a selected operating mode. Moreover, unlike the upper body of a conventional humanoid robot, a chest plate is installed and used to properly distribute the casualty's weight to the dual-arm manipulator and the chest plate when carrying the casualty.…”

A Review of Recurrent Neural Network Architecture for Sequence Learning: Comparison between LSTM and GRU

“…In the past two decades, robots have taken charge in many areas such as medical centers [18], military [19] and indus-try [20]. Scientists have been trying to design and build robots that are capable of smooth and natural movements to do the tasks that are normally done by human beings.…”