Command and Control Systems for Search and Rescue Robots

Abstract

The novel application of unmanned systems in the domain of humanitarian Search and Rescue (SAR) operations has created a need to develop speciic multi-Robot Command and Control (RC2) systems. This societal application of robotics requires human-robot interfaces for controlling a large leet of heterogeneous robots deployed in multiple domains of operation (ground, aerial and marine). This chapter provides an overview of the Command, Control and Intelligence (C2I) system developed within the scope of Integrated Components for Assisted Rescue and Unmanned Search operations (ICARUS). The life cycle of the system begins with a description of use cases and the deployment scenarios in collaboration with SAR teams as end-users. This is followed by an illustration of the system design and architecture, core technologies used in implementing the C2I, iterative integration phases with ield deployments for evaluating and improving the system. The main subcomponents consist of a central Mission Planning and Coordination System (MPCS), ield Robot Command and Control (RC2) subsystems with a portable force-feedback exoskeleton interface for robot arm tele-manipulation and ield mobile devices. The distribution of these C2I subsystems with their communication links for unmanned SAR operations is described in detail. Field demonstrations of the C2I system with SAR personnel assisted by unmanned systems provide an outlook for implementing such systems into mainstream SAR operations in the future.Keywords: command and control, human machine interfacing © 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. IntroductionThis chapter describes the concepts and features behind the command, control and intelligence (C2I) system developed in the ICARUS project, which aims at improving crisis management with the use of unmanned search and rescue (SAR) robotic appliances embedded and integrated into existing infrastructures. A beneicial C2I system should assist the search and rescue process by enhancing irst responder situational awareness, decision-making and crisis handling by designing intuitive user interfaces that convey detailed and extensive information about the crisis and its evolution.The diferent components of C2I, their architectural and functional aspects are described along with the robot platform used for development and ield testing in Figure 1. This section also provides an elicitation and analysis of the ICARUS C2I system requirements and the overall system and subsystem components' architecture (hardware and software), along with the interfaces and data shared between these components. The objective is to provide a static and dynamic view of the structure and hierarchy within the components of this system.There have been recent eforts [1, 2, 3] where C2I robots have been deplo...

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