Field and Service Robotics - Corke P. and Sukkarieh S.(Eds) Part 15 docx

506 D.F. Huber and N. Vandapel References 1. C. Baker, Z. Omohundro, S. Thayer, W. Whittaker, M. Montemerlo and S. Thrun, “Case Studies in Robotic Mine Mapping”, International Conference on Field and Service Robotics, 2003. 2. T. Gibb and D. Hopey, “Quecreek mine accident report blames outdated map”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 8, 2003. 3. D. Huber and M. Hebert, “A New Approach to 3D Terrain Mapping”, IEEE/RSJ Inter- national Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Systems, 1999. 4. D. Huber, “Automatic Three-dimensional Modeling from Reality”, Doctoral Disserta- tion, Carnegie Mellon University, 2002. 5. D. Huber and M. Hebert, “3D Modeling Using a Statistical Sensor Model and Stochastic Search”, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2003. 6. D. Langer, M. Mettenleiter, F. Hartl and C. Frohlich, Imaging Ladar for 3-D Surveying and CAD Modeling of Real World Environments, International Journal of Robotics Research, vol 19, no 11. 7. R.Madhavan, M. Dissanayake and H. Durrant-Whyte, “Autonomous underground navi- gation of an LHD using a combined ICP-EKF approach”, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1998. 8. R. Madhavan, G. Dissanayake and H. Durrant-Whyte, “Map-building and map-based localization in an underground-mine by statistical pattern matching“, International Con- ference on Pattern Recognition, 1998. 9. A. Morris, D. Kurth, W. Whittaker and Scott Thayer, “Case Studies of a Borehole Deployable Robot for Limestone Mine Profiling and Mapping”, International Conference on Field and Service Robotics, 2003. 10. J.M. Roberts, E.S. Duff, P. Corke, P. Sikka, G.J. winstanley and J. Cunningham, “Au- tonomous Control of Underground Mining Ve hicles using Reactive Navigation”, Inter- national Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2000. 11. S. Scheding, E. Nebot, M. Stevens, H. Durrant-Whyte, J. Roberts, P. Corke, J. Cun- ningham, and B. Cook, “Experiments in autonomous underground guidance”, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1997. 12. S. Scheding, G. Dissanayake, E.M. Nebot, and H. Durrant-Whyte, “An Experiment in Autonomous Navigation of an Underground Mining Vehicle”, IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, vol 15, no 1, 1999. 13. G. Shaffer, A. Stentz, W. Whittaker, and K. Fitzpatrick, “Position estimator for under- ground mine equipment”, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vo lume: 28 Issue: 5, Sep/Oct 1992. 14. S. Thrun et al., “A System for Vo lumetric Robotic Mapping of Abandoned Mines”, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2003. Development of Pneumatically Controlled Expandable Arm forSearch in the Environment with Tight Access DaisukeMishima, Takeshi Aoki, and Shigeo Hirose TokyoInstitute of Technology hirose@mes.titech.ac.jp http://www-robot.mes.titech.ac.jp Abstract. There is astrong demand for efficient lifesaving techniques and devices in prepara- tion for large-scale earthquakes. We focus on searching survivors and develop the rescue robot "Pneumatic-Drive Expandable Arm." That is an elastic arm type robot drivenbypneumatic pressure and has acamera onthe head. That can travelstably in the rubble-strewn environment where electric power or wireless communication is not available. 1Introduction There is astrong demand for efficient rescue techniques and devices in preparation for large-scale earthquakes. This study aims to develop the robot that focuses on efficient survivorsearch. This paper reports the Pneumatic-Drive Expandable Arm ("Slime Scope" see Fig. 1),which has asearch device, such as CCD camera, at the end of the pneumatically controlled expandable arm. Fig.1. Slime Scope 2Conventional SurvivorSearch The first step of rescue operation in the rubble is to identify the location of survivors. Conventionally suchsearch mostly dependson thevoice ofsurvivors, withoccasional S. Yuta et al. (Eds.): Field and Service Robotics, STAR 24, pp. 509–518, 2006. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006 510 D. Mishima, T. Aoki, and S. Hirose use of rescue dogs. Howeverthe voice of survivors are often overwhelmed by the noise of earthmoving machines and helicopters, which significantly reduces the efficiencyofrescue operation. Therefore some newdevices have been proposed, such as the one that has a camera at the end of arod[1] or the one that uses flexible fiber scope[2]. However, theyhavetrouble in the rubble-strewn environment; the former lacks flexibility and thus the search area is limited while the latter is too flexible to go overdeep gaps (Fig. 2,3).Inaddition both of them need to be pushed into the rubble that causes large friction and may damage the device. Considering the above,the device to search survivors in the rubble needs following properties: • Flexibility that allows the device to go inside along the rubble • Rigidity to go overgaps and holes • Minimum friction resistance with the rubble In this study,wedeveloped anew search device called Distal Expandable Tube (DETube), which meets these criteria. Fig.2. Search in the rubble (rod-type device) Fig.3. Bridging agap (fiber scope) 3Distal Expandable Tube 3.1 Principle of DETube Shown belowishow the DETube works. 1. Attach atube made of airtight, flexible and inexpansive material to the hermetic case. Then the end of the tube is closed to makeasack. (Fig. 4:1) 2. Tuck the tube inside. (Fig. 4:2) 3. Put air in the tube. (Fig. 4:3) 4. The tube tucked inside extends. (Fig. 4:4) Development of Pneumatically Controlled Expandable Arm for Search 511 Fig.4. Principle of DETube 3.2 Characteristics of the DETube One of the major characteristics of the DETube is that it can expand without causing friction with the outside. That is because, as we mentioned before, it expands by dispensing the tube from inside, so the part once extracted outside stands still against the outside environment. Another major characteristics is that it uses apneumatic tube for expandable unit. Because of this, it can bend easily and, with adirection instruction device installed at the end, go along the rubble (Fig. 5).Onthe other hand, the tube can become more rigid by increasing the inner pressure to go overaditch (Fig. 6).That is, DETube can serveasanewmechanism to go through the rubble that meets the criteria required for devices that operate in the rubble as described in Chapter 2(Fig. 7). Fig.5. Search in the rubble (Slime Scope) Fig.6. Bridging agap (Slime Scope) 4Development of Slime Scope We developed the "Slime Scope," an expandable search device, using the DETube we described in the previous section. 512 D. Mishima, T. Aoki, and S. Hirose Fig.7. Search in the rubble using DETube The Slime Scope is composed of four major units, namely 1) air compressor that supplies air,2)tube unit that expands using the DETube mechanism, 3) the head unit that has the search device and 4) the hermetic wheel unit which controls the amount of expansion. Shown beloware the details of each unit. 4.1 Air Compressor The test machine uses an electrically operated air compressor to supply air.However, an electric air compressor is not suitable for actual rescue operation since it is too heavy to carry around and electricity is often not available at disaster sites. Therefore we are planning to replace the current electric air compressor with aman-powered pump in the future. To be more specific, we will use the man- power extracting device, which wasjointly developed by the KanagawaIndustrial Technology Research Institute and our laboratory (Fig. 8).This device is afoot pump. When using this device for the Slime Scope, an accumulator and apressure- reducing valvewill be installed between them. Fig.8. Man power extracting device Development of Pneumatically Controlled Expandable Arm for Search 513 4.2 Tube Unit The tube unit shall be made of airtight and flexible material that can also bear the inner pressure. We used Kevlar fiber lined with urethane rubber that is not expansive. The model we developed this time has ahose that is 80 mm in diameter and 0.5 mm in thickness and 5minlength. The tube specifications are shown Fig. 9,10. Table 1. Tube unit specifications Diameter of Tube 80 [mm] Length of Tube 3000 [mm] Fig.9. Tube unit (before expansion) Fig.10. Tube unit (after expansion) 4.3 Head Unit As shown in Fig. 11 ,the head unit and tube unit are fixed by the power supplying wire inside of the tube. Therefore, when the tube expands at the velocity u, as shown in Fig. 11 ,the inner wire will come out at twice that speed, 2u. As aresult, extra wire will pile up at the end. To makethe head unit followthe tube, it is necessary to wind up the excessive wire length. Therefore we added the wire-rewinding device to the head unit (Fig. 12 ,13). The specifications of the head unit are shown Table 2. Table 2. Head unit specifications Diameter 90 [mm] Mass 400 [g] 4.4 Hermetic Wheel Case As shown in Fig. 14 ,15,the hermetic case is composed of the following: 514 D. Mishima, T. Aoki, and S. Hirose Fig.11. Connection of head unit Fig.12. The mechanism of Head unit Fig.13. Head unit • awinch • slip ring • an air tank (Hermetic case) • lock mechanics The winch winds up the tube and wire simultaneously.The slip ring allows supplying electricity to the outside through the wire wound up around the winch. The air tank contains the air supplied from the air compressor.The amount of tube expansion is controlled by the handle and lock mechanics. Fig.14. Hermetic wheel case Fig.15. Hermetic wheel case This Hermetic Wheel case can wind up up to 10 moftube. Since the wire is inside of the tube and will be wound up along with the tube, the wire will twist if no measure is taken. The slip ring prevents this twist. The next section explains the handle lock mechanism. When air pressure is applied, the tube will expand in forward direction. Accordingly,itwill continue Development of Pneumatically Controlled Expandable Arm for Search 515 Fig.16. The principle of Lock mechanics Fig.17. Lock mechanics expanding unless the expansion is stopped. In rescue operations, however, some- times it is necessary to stop tube expansion and search acertain area for awhile. Therefore, the device controls the expansion amount by locking the handle to stop tube expansion. Fig. 16 ,17shows the actual handle lock mechanism. The Slime Scope controls the tube expansion by locking and releasing the handle. 5Test Machine Fig. 18 shows our test machine. We used this test machine to confirm that the DETube could travelinthe rubble. Fig.18. Test machine Table 3. Test machine specifications Total mass 10.4 [Kg] Length of Tube (Max) 1980 [mm] Length of Tube (Min) 480 [mm] 516 D. Mishima, T. Aoki, and S. Hirose 6Characteristics of the DETube 6.1 The Holding Power of the DETube The DETube’sholding power means the power to maintain tube expansion against the propelling force at the head of the DETube. Here the propelling force means the force that let out the tube forward at the end of the DETube. Assuming that propelling force produced by the DETube is F T ,the holding power is F k ,the force that holds the tube from outside is F f and the loss is F L ,the relationship of these can be expressed as Equation (1). Here the loss means the friction resistance between the external tube and retracted tube and so on. F T = F k + F f + F L (1) As the DETube’spropulsion principle is the same as the principle of apulley, the following equation is established. F k = F f (2) Substituting Equation (2) in Equation (1) yields the following equation. F T =2F k + F L (3) Here F T is the product of the pressure inside of the tube and the stress area, so if the holding force F k is determined, impact of the loss in propelling force can be calculated from Equation (3). In other words, determining the holding power is considered to be important to knowthe characteristics of the DETube. Therefore, we calculated the loss in propelling force by measuring the holding power F k using the experiment device shown in Figs. 19 .Fig 20 shows the result. Fig.19. Experiment apparatus Fig.20. Result The result demonstratedthat the holdingpower wasnot the sameas the propelling power.This discrepancyresults from the friction loss. Further it wasconfirmed that the higher the pressure, the larger the impact of the loss became. It is possibly because higher pressure increased the friction resistance inside the tube and thus increased the loss. Development of Pneumatically Controlled Expandable Arm for Search 517 In addition, Fig. 20 shows that the holding power remains almost the same regardless of the expansion amount. In other words, the impact of the loss is in- dependent of the expansion amount. However, in theory,asthe expansion amount becomes larger,the contact area betweenthe external tube andretractedtube, namely, the area where loss from friction occurs, will increase. As aresult, the loss must be larger.The reason of this difference is assumed that since the expansion amount was small (max. 800 mm), the loss from friction resistance wasalso small. 6.2 Bending of the DETube In the previous experiment, we studied the impact from the loss by measuring the holding power when the DETube went straightforward. However, in actual search operations in the rubble, the DETube will often need to bend to go through, rather than go straightforward. Accordingly,westudied the changes of the loss when DETube bends, using the experiment apparatus shown in Fig. 21 .Fig. 22 shows the result. Fig.21. Experiment apparatus Fig.22. Result Fig. 22 shows that the holding power decreases as the bending angle increases. It suggests that increase of bending angle results in increased in loss. Then we studied the loss. When the DETube is bended, the contact area between the external tube and retracted tube will increase and the area affected by sliding friction will increase. Therefore, it is considered that the loss will increase. To study the impact of the friction loss, we repeated the previous experiment once again after applying grease inside of the tube for lubrication. Fig. 23 shows the result. Fig. 23 shows that the holding power is larger,that is, the loss is smaller when the lubricant is applied to the inside of the tube compared to when the lubricant is not applied. It confirmed that the loss from the friction force is amajor factor that decreases the holding power. [...]... Robot for Search-IV, and their control system to find sufferers in debris, and the study and development of them were made Based on the knowledge obtained by the development of previous type robots and the RoboCup-Rescue 2002 competition games, we describe the development and evaluation of UMRS-V series with new mechanism and search system in this paper S Yuta et al (Eds.): Field and Service Robotics, STAR... software and hardware units commonly used in every robots in UMRS-V series, and the proper function of each robot can be added on this basic unit UMRSs and the operator have computers, and the commands and the information are received and transmitted between these computers by IEEE802.11b wireless LAN And the necessary data are received and transmitted between the computer and the motor controller and I/O... attachments objects as easy-to-recognize landmarks like desks, doors and so on Rather than drawing the shape of the wall at small area in detail, it seems to be more effective and useful to show the route by putting the simplified landmarks on the map in searching area A few kinds of objects as easy-to-recognize landmarks are prepared as a template, and the operator places one and another chosen from these... sensors and distributed over some area that form an ad-hoc network Our heterogeneous teams of agents (sensors, robots, and humans) constitute distributed adaptive sensor networks and are well-suited for tasks in extreme environments, S Yuta et al (Eds.): Field and Service Robotics, STAR 24, pp 529–538, 2006 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006 530 G Kantor et al Sensors Robots Fig 1 (Left) An ad-hoc... Development of Rescue Robots in Huge Disaster RS150 (in Japanese), Jpn Soc Mech Engng pp.14 9-1 96, 1999 3 Shigeru Kobayashi and Toshi Takamori, “A Human Body Search System by a ManMachine Controlled Group of Robots in a Rescue Operation,” Advanced Robotics, Cutting Edge of Robotics in Japan 2002 Volume 16 Number 6, pp.52 5-5 28, 2002 Distributed Search and Rescue with Robot and Sensor Teams George Kantor1 , Sanjiv... in the experiment of RoboCup-Rescue, the improvement of the robustness of the body when it drops, and so on The body size is 600 × 520 × 180 [mm] (when auxiliary crawlers are retracted), and weight is 21.4 [kg] Fig 2 The Photo of UMRS-V-M1 SGI No.1 robot (UMRS-V-S1) is lightweight and compact The body size is 360 × 390 × 155 [mm] (when auxiliary crawlers are retracted), and weight is 7.8 [kg] The main... and displays the information, and explained in detail at 3.2 Command Generator produces the proper commands to manipulate UMRS The input is the situation of the search by operator’s commands and the data, the concrete actions each UMRS is decided based on the search algorithm Data have their construction to store information, and generate the search map and Development of Mobile Robots for Search and. .. Masayuki Takashima1 , Shiro Takashima1 , and Masatoshi Yamada2 1 2 Dept of Computer & Systems Eng Kobe Univ ikeuchi@r.cs.kobe-u.ac.jp, takamori@r.cs.kobe-u.ac.jp, takasima@r.cs.kobe-u.ac.jp, s takashima@r.cs.kobe-u.ac.jp http://www.r.cs.kobe-u.ac.jp/ Dept of Mechanical Eng Kobe City College of Tech kobayash@kobe-kosen.ac.jp, r202109@kobe-kosen.ac.jp http://www.kobe-kosen.ac.jp Abstract This paper proposes... information and the outputs of distance measurement sensors 3.2 Outline of Operation Using a mouse and a keyboard does the instruction to the UMRS in search The cursor keys, forward and backward movements by up and down keys, and the left and the right full turns by left and right keys do the man-machine control And the mouse does other operation basically The operating display of this search system is shown... interface and the operators finally confirm bodies of sufferer, their position and orientation from operators and the environment where they lie The camera installed in UMRS-V series is iBot by Orange Micro Inc connectable to IEEE1394 interface and easy to correspond H.323 movie streaming protocol Data Processing and Control system The outline of the data processing and control system of UMRS-V is shown . shape. 2.2 Sensing, Processing, and Control Sensor System Sensors installed in UMRS-V are as follows. Development of Mobile Robots for Search and Rescue Operation Systems 523 Positoining Sensors: The. r202109@kobe-kosen.ac.jp http://www.kobe-kosen.ac.jp Abstract. This paper proposes asufferers searching system using the group of robots to find sufferers at debris as quickly as possible in urban disaster.Fivekind of newrobots (Series UMRS-V). The principle of Lock mechanics Fig.17. Lock mechanics expanding unless the expansion is stopped. In rescue operations, however, some- times it is necessary to stop tube expansion and search acertain