Snake‐like, tracked, mobile robot with active flippers for urban search‐and‐rescue tasks

Abstract

PurposeAfter a building collapse, people buried alive have to be localized and rescued. This requires the damage site's inspection and surveillance. These tasks are dangerous and challenging due to the area's hard‐to‐reach and hazardous environment. The damage site cannot be actively entered but must be inspected from a safe distance. In this context, mobile robots gain in importance as they can be operated semi‐autonomously or remote‐controlled without exposing the first responders to the risk. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel robot.Design/methodology/approachThe novel robot introduced in this paper has a snake‐like build‐up, uses tracks and active flippers for locomotion and negotiates completely structured as well as extremely unstructured and rough terrain. The system's slender, segmented and modular structure is actively articulated by the use of overall 30 degrees‐of‐freedom, which allow the robot's flexible adaptation to a given terrain. System‐terrain‐interaction is detected by the use of an innovative, RFID‐based sensory integrated in the system's tracks.FindingsThe paper presents the mobile robot's basic features, as well as first experimental results for semi‐autonomy and tele‐operation.Originality/valueThe introduced robot stands out due to its high locomotion and mobility capabilities.

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A Snake-Like Robot with Envelope Wheels and Obstacle-Aided Gaits

“…Meanwhile, the snake-like robot's extremity is similar to the robotic arm and can perform some complicated movements. Thus, snake-like robots can be successfully applied in nonstructural environments, such as disaster rescue, human body cavity examination, and industrial pipe inspection [1,2]. Currently, the control methods for snake-like robots have been widely studied, with the goal of researchers to realize snake-like robots that can work in any environment.…”

Design, Analysis, and Experiment for Rescue Robot with Wheel-Legged Structure

“…According to the different movement forms, rescue robots can be divided into four categories: tracked rescue robot [5][6][7][8], wheeled rescue robot [9], multilegged rescue robot [10,11], and snake-like rescue robot [12,13]. However, the movement environment and function of the above four kinds of robots have some limitations.…”