Why Should Inspection Robots be used in Deep Underground Mines?

Zimroz, Radosław; Hutter, Marco; Mistry, Michael; Stefaniak, Paweł; Walas, Krzysztof

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-99220-4_42

Cited by 31 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Tactile and haptic inspection with legged robots are relevant problems in the literature [44], [45], [54]. Indeed, using a purely visual inspection in places, such as deep underground mines or sewers, can lead to almost certain failures [55]. The sensing system can be employed for using SoftFoot-Q as a haptic probe to explore and sense the environment.…”

Section: B Haptic Explorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Feet for Quadrupedal Walkers

et al. 2022

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The vast majority of state-of-the-art walking robots employ flat or ball feet for locomotion, presenting limitations while stepping on obstacles, slopes, or unstructured terrain. Moreover, traditional feet for quadrupeds lack sensing systems that are able to provide information about the environment and about the foot interaction with the surroundings. This further diminishes their value. Inspired by our previous work on soft feet for bipedal robots, we present the SoftFoot-Q, an articulated adaptive foot for quadrupeds. This device is conceived to be robust and able to overcome the limitations of currently employed feet. The core idea behind our adaptive foot design is first introduced and validated through a simplified mathematical formulation of the problem. Subsequently, we present the chosen mechanical implementation to attempt overcoming current limitations. The realized prototype of adaptive foot is integrated and tested on the compliantly actuated quadrupedal robot ANYmal together with an ROS-based real-time foot pose reconstruction software. Both extensive field tests and indoor experiments show noticeable performance improvements, in terms of reduced slippage of the robot, with respect to both flat and ball feet.

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Section: B Haptic Explorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Feet for Quadrupedal Walkers

et al. 2022

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“…Legged robots offer unique mobility capabilities which make them highly suitable for traversing challenging environments that would prove difficult for wheeled robots, as they have the ability to meet locomotion, size, payload, and endurance requirements to operate in extreme environments. For some prominent examples, see: ANYmal [7], [8], Robosimian [9], DRC-HUBO+ [10], Nimbro Momaro [11], MIT Cheetah [12], BigDog [13], Ghost Robotics Vision 60 [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomous Spot: Long-Range Autonomous Exploration of Extreme Environments with Legged Locomotion

Bouman

Ginting

Alatur

et al. 2020

2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

120

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This paper serves as one of the first efforts to enable large-scale and long-duration autonomy using the Boston Dynamics Spot robot. Motivated by exploring extreme environments, particularly those involved in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, this paper pushes the boundaries of the state-ofpractice in enabling legged robotic systems to accomplish realworld complex missions in relevant scenarios. In particular, we discuss the behaviors and capabilities which emerge from the integration of the autonomy architecture NeBula (Networked Belief-aware Perceptual Autonomy) with next-generation mobility systems. We will discuss the hardware and software challenges, and solutions in mobility, perception, autonomy, and very briefly, wireless networking, as well as lessons learned and future directions. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed solutions on physical systems in real-world scenarios. 3 The proposed solution contributed to winning 1st-place in the 2020 DARPA Subterranean Challenge, Urban Circuit. 4

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“…There are some promising papers on that subject [5][6][7][8][9]. Several inspection scenarios have been defined under the umbrella of THING project [10]. Interesting examples of using inspection robots in underground mine is mapping or exploration [11][12][13][14][15][16], supporting of rescue action [17][18][19] or other "mine disasters" [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Inspection Robot for Belt Conveyor Maintenance in Underground Mine—Infrared Thermography for Overheated Idlers Detection

et al. 2020

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It is well known that mechanical systems require supervision and maintenance procedures. There are a lot of condition monitoring techniques that are commonly used, and in the era of IoT and predictive maintenance one may find plenty of solutions for various applications. Unfortunately in the case of belt conveyors used in underground mining a list of possible solutions shrinks quickly. The reason is that they are specific mechanical systems—the typical conveyor is located in the mining tunnel and its length may vary between 100 and 1000 m. According to mining regulations, visual inspection of the conveyor route should be done before it will start the operation. On the other hand, since environmental conditions in mining tunnels are extremely harsh and the risk of accidents is high, there is a tendency to minimize human presence in the tunnels. In this paper, we propose a prototype of an inspection robot based on a UGV platform that could support maintenance staff during the inspection. At present, the robot is controlled by an operator using radio however, we plan to make it autonomous. Moreover, its support could be significant—the robot can “see” elements of the conveyor route (RGB camera) and can identify hot spots using infrared thermography. Moreover, the detected hot spots could be localized and its position can be stored together with both types of images. In parallel, it is possible to preview images in a real-time and stored data allow analysing state of conveyor system after the inspection mission. It is also important that due to radio control systems, an operator can stay in a safe place. Such a robot can be classified as a mobile monitoring system for spatially distributed underground infrastructure.

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Why Should Inspection Robots be used in Deep Underground Mines?

Cited by 31 publications

References 16 publications

Adaptive Feet for Quadrupedal Walkers

Adaptive Feet for Quadrupedal Walkers

Autonomous Spot: Long-Range Autonomous Exploration of Extreme Environments with Legged Locomotion

An Inspection Robot for Belt Conveyor Maintenance in Underground Mine—Infrared Thermography for Overheated Idlers Detection

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