Developing a Robust Disaster Response Robot: CHIMP and the Robotics Challenge

Haynes, Galen Clark; Stager, David; Stentz, Anthony; Weghe, J. Michael Vande; Zajac, Brian; Herman, Herman; Kelly, Alonzo; Meyhofer, Eric; Anderson, D.M.; Bennington, Dane; Brindza, Ján; Butterworth, David; Dellin, Chris; George, Michael; González–Mora, José Luis; Jones, Morgan; Kini, Prathamesh; Laverne, Michel; Letwin, Nick; Perko, Eric; Pinkston, Chris; Rice, David; Scheifflee, Justin; Strabala, Kyle; Waldbaum, Mark; Warner, Randy

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-74666-1_4

Cited by 6 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In many cases, simple strategies already show improvements in active locomotion (Haynes et al, 2017), reducing the computational and sensory requirements. The strategy pursued for SherpaTT and presented in this study relies basically on four force measurements at the wheels as well as roll and pitch measurements of the body as the only exteroceptive data for ground adaption.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and field testing of a rover with an actively articulated suspension system in a Mars analog terrain

Cordes¹,

Kirchner

Babu³

2018

Journal of Field Robotics

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This study presents the electromechanical design, the control approach, and the results of a field test campaign with the hybrid wheeled‐leg rover SherpaTT. The rover ranges in the 150 kg class and features an actively articulated suspension system comprising four legs with actively driven and steered wheels at each leg’s end. Five active degrees of freedom are present in each of the legs, resulting in 20 active degrees of freedom for the complete locomotion system. The control approach is based on force measurements at each wheel mounting point and roll–pitch measurements of the rover’s main body, allowing active adaption to sloping terrain, active shifting of the center of gravity within the rover’s support polygon, active roll–pitch influencing, and body‐ground clearance control. Exteroceptive sensors such as camera or laser range finder are not required for ground adaption. A purely reactive approach is used, rendering a planning algorithm for stability control or force distribution unnecessary and thus simplifying the control efforts. The control approach was tested within a 4‐week field deployment in the desert of Utah. The results presented in this paper substantiate the feasibility of the chosen approach: The main power requirement for locomotion is from the drive system, active adaption only plays a minor role in power consumption. Active force distribution between the wheels is successful in different footprints and terrain types and is not influenced by controlling the body’s roll–pitch angle in parallel to the force control. Slope‐climbing capabilities of the system were successfully tested in slopes of up to 28° inclination, covered with loose soil and duricrust. The main contribution of this study is the experimental validation of the actively articulated suspension of SherpaTT in conjunction with a reactive control approach. Consequently, hardware and software design as well as experimentation are part of this study.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and field testing of a rover with an actively articulated suspension system in a Mars analog terrain

Cordes¹,

Kirchner

Babu³

2018

Journal of Field Robotics

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“…A major focus of the DRC was to develop ways to combine the complementary strengths and weaknesses of the robot system and human operator(s). Even though the competitions required humanoid robots to perform complex tasks like driving a utility vehicle, opening a door, handling valves [96][97][98][99] etc, it did not involve any direct casualty extraction or evacuation challenges. The EU-FP7 euRathlon project was a three-year initiative funded by the European Commission, started in 2013.…”

Section: Robotic Rescue Competitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review and Analysis of Search, Extraction, Evacuation, and Medical Field Treatment Robots

Williams

Sebastian

Ben-Tzvi

2019

J Intell Robot Syst

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One of the most impactful and exciting applications of robotic technology, especially autonomous and semi-autonomous systems, is in the field of search and rescue. Robots present an opportunity to go where rescuers cannot, keep responders out of danger, work indefatigably, and augment the capabilities of the humans who put their lives at risk while helping others. This paper examines the use of robotic systems in human rescue applications, with an emphasis on performing search, extraction, evacuation, and medical field treatment procedures. The work begins with a review of the various robotic systems designed to perform one or more of the above operations. The relative merits of each system are discussed along with their shortcomings. The paper also addresses the use of robotic competitions as a means of benchmarking field robotic systems. Based on the review of state of the art systems, a novel concept (Semi-Autonomous Victim Extraction Robot) designed to address the shortcomings of existing systems is described in the conclusion, along with detailed discussion on how it improves upon state of the art systems. The future research thrusts to be explored before realizing a fully integrated robotic rescue system are also detailed. Keywords Search and rescue robots • Casualty extraction • Human-robot interaction • Autonomous systems Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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“…Most of the existing approaches have achieved this goal by relying on teleoperation. [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Supervisory steering and gas commands are sent to the robot to drive the car in Karumanchi et al 23 ; DeDonato and colleagues 24 propose a hybrid solution, with teleoperated steering and autonomous speed control. The velocity of the car, estimated with stereo cameras, is fed back to a proportional integral (PI) controller, whereas light imaging, detection, and ranging (LIDAR), IMU, and visual odometry data support the operator during the steering procedures.…”

Section: Problem Formulation and Proposed Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Note that these artificial road borders, manually set by the user, may not correspond to the real borders of the road. In fact, they just represent geometrical references-more intuitive for humans-to easily define the vanishing and middle points and steer the car using (21). Concurrently, the robot ankle was teleoperated to achieve a desired car velocity.…”

Section: Third Experiment: Shared-autonomy Driving At the Drc Finalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Autonomous car driving by a humanoid robot

Paolillo

Gergondet

Cherubini

et al. 2017

Journal of Field Robotics

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Enabling a humanoid robot to drive a car requires the development of a set of basic primitive actions. These include walking to the vehicle, manually controlling its commands (e.g., ignition, gas pedal, and steering) and moving with the whole body to ingress/egress the car. We present a sensor‐based reactive framework for realizing the central part of the complete task, consisting of driving the car along unknown roads. The proposed framework provides three driving strategies by which a human supervisor can teleoperate the car or give the robot full or partial control of the car. A visual servoing scheme uses features of the road image to provide the reference angle for the steering wheel to drive the car at the center of the road. Simultaneously, a Kalman filter merges optical flow and accelerometer measurements to estimate the car linear velocity and correspondingly compute the gas pedal command for driving at a desired speed. The steering wheel and gas pedal reference are sent to the robot control to achieve the driving task with the humanoid. We present results from a driving experience with a real car and the humanoid robot HRP‐2Kai. Part of the framework has been used to perform the driving task at the DARPA Robotics Challenge.

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Developing a Robust Disaster Response Robot: CHIMP and the Robotics Challenge

Cited by 6 publications

References 14 publications

Design and field testing of a rover with an actively articulated suspension system in a Mars analog terrain

Design and field testing of a rover with an actively articulated suspension system in a Mars analog terrain

Review and Analysis of Search, Extraction, Evacuation, and Medical Field Treatment Robots

Autonomous car driving by a humanoid robot

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