Survey on Urban Search and Rescue Robots

Shah, Bhavan; Choset, Howie

doi:10.7210/jrsj.22.582

Cited by 51 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Fieldable ground robots for urban search and rescue, while growing in sophistication, are largely confined to locomotion on the rubblealmost exclusively categorized in the man-packable class and deployed singly with multiple operators in teleoperation mode [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. Due to the pressure of limited time to find survivors, search and rescue is an obvious domain that would benefit from multi-robot teams, forming networks of sensors and actuators delving into the rubble in the search for survivors where they are likely to be trapped.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

RecoNode: A reconfigurable node for heterogeneous multi-robot search and rescue

Voyles

Povilus

Mangharam

et al. 2010

2010 IEEE Safety Security and Rescue Robotics

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Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/mlab_papers Part of the Engineering CommonsSuggested Citation: Voyles, R.M.; Povilus, S.; Mangharam, R.; Kang Li; , "RecoNode: A reconfigurable node for heterogeneous multi-robot search and rescue," Safety Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), 2010 IEEE International Workshop on , vol., no., pp.1-7, 26-30 July 2010 doi: 10.1109/SSRR.2010 ©2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. AbstractSearch and rescue robots can benefit from small size as it facilitates access to voids and movement in cramped quarters. Yet, small robots cannot be the entire answer for urban search and rescue because small size limits the size of actuators, sensor payloads, computational capacity and battery capacity. Nonetheless, we are attempting to alleviate these limitations by developing the hardware and software infrastructure for heterogeneous, wireless sensor/actuator/control networks that is well-suited to miniature search and rescue robots, as well as a host of other relevant applications. These networks of application-specific sensors, actuators and intelligence will be assembled from a backbone that includes scalable computing, a flexible I/O bus, and multi-hop data networking. But two things will ultimately give our wireless infrastructure its novelty: a dual-baseband communications layer and the embedded virtual machine. The dual-baseband communications layer augments the standard data communication layer with a secondary, sub-millisecond synchronization layer to permit high-fidelity, deterministic, distributed control across the network. The determinism of this dual-baseband communications layer, in turn, enables the creation of the embedded virtual machine, which is a programming construct that abstracts away the physical sensor/actuator/control nodes. With this infrastructure, programming will not be done at the node level, as in conventional wireless sensor networks. Instead, programming will be done at the task level with port-based objects distributed across physical resources as necessary at either compile-time or run-time. At compile-time, the system can assist in the specification of the physical network, while at run-time the system can react to changes in configuration, such as nodes exhausting their batteries or losing connectivity. This paper describes progress todate on developing this scalable infrastructure, specifically the RecoNode high-performance, dynamicallyreconfigurable computational node for the Terminator-Bot crawling robot and the FireFly mid-performance node, as well as their real-time software. Abstract -Search and rescue robots can benefit from small size as it facilitates access to voids and movement in cramped quarters. Yet, small robots cannot b...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

RecoNode: A reconfigurable node for heterogeneous multi-robot search and rescue

Voyles

Povilus

Mangharam

et al. 2010

2010 IEEE Safety Security and Rescue Robotics

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“…Existing fieldable solutions for safety, security, and rescue robotics ͑SSRR͒ are optimized for core locomotion and ruggedness ͑Shah & Choset, 2004;Murphy, 2004;Davids, 2002͒. Even with plain tele-operation the systems are already very useful devices ͑Snyder, 2001; Abouaf, 1998͒.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hough based terrain classification for realtime detection of drivable ground

Poppinga

Birk

Pathak

2007

Journal of Field Robotics

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The usability of mobile robots for surveillance and search and rescue missions can be significantly improved by adding intelligent functionalities that decrease the cognitive load on the operator or that even allow autonomous behavior of the robots, e.g., when communication fails. Mobility in this regard is not only the mechatronic endeavor of developing suited locomotion apparatuses, but also a perception, modeling, and planning challenge. Here, the perception issue of detecting drivable ground is addressed, a particularly important issue for safety, security, and rescue robots, which have to operate in a vast range of unstructured, challenging environments. The simple yet efficient approach is based on the Hough transform of planes. The idea is to design the parameter space such that drivable surfaces can be easily detected by the number of hits in the bins corresponding to drivability. A decision tree on the bin properties increases robustness as it allows the robot to handle uncertainties, especially sensor noise. In addition to the binary distinction of drivable/nondrivable ground, a classification of terrain types is possible. The algorithm is applied to 3D data obtained from two different sensors, namely, a near-infrared time of flight camera and a stereo camera. Experimental results are presented for typical indoor as well as outdoor terrains, demonstrating robust realtime detection of drivable ground. Seven datasets recorded indoors and outdoors under very varying conditions are used for this purpose. About 6800 snapshots of range data are processed in total. It is shown that drivability can be robustly detected with success rates ranging between 83% and 100%. Computation is extremely fast in the order of 5 to 50 ms.

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“…Work since published details the performance and failures of these robots in the field [1,2] Many of the discussed failures arose principally because the robots were not able to navigate successfully through the collapse site. One of the dominant issues in USAR robot design is, therefore, that of mobility.…”

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confidence: 99%

A Novel USAR Digging Mechanism

Scott

Richardson

2006

2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

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The uncertain and dynamic terrain within an Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) scenario presents an enormous challenge to the mobility of any robotic platform. To maximise the chance of success the design must be performed with consideration of the likely target environment. Current knowledge on building collapse debris fields suggest that robots must be able to move through and underneath debris utilizing void spaces. Due to the likely chance of void spaces being partially blocked, an USAR robot should have manipulation capability, a very under-explored area of USAR robotics. The moving of debris can be likened to the digging action of some animals such as the European mole. The current work proposes a novel digging mechanism that is simulated using MSC visualNastran 4D and controlled using Matlab Simulink and shown to have distinct efficiency benefits.

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Survey on Urban Search and Rescue Robots

Cited by 51 publications

References 2 publications

RecoNode: A reconfigurable node for heterogeneous multi-robot search and rescue

RecoNode: A reconfigurable node for heterogeneous multi-robot search and rescue

Hough based terrain classification for realtime detection of drivable ground

A Novel USAR Digging Mechanism

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