Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Advanced Mechatronic Systems, Melbourne, Australia, November 30 - December 3, 2016

Quantitative Analysis of the Relationship between

Camera Image Characteristics and Operability of
Rescue Robots

Noritaka Sato, Masayoshi Koiji and Yoshifumi Morita

Dept. of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering
Nagoya Institute of Technology
Nagoya, Japan
Email: sato.noritaka@nitech.ac.jp

Abstract—Many rescue robots have been developed to search This study focused on the features of a camera image
for victims and gather information at disaster sites. Generally, mounted on a robot. The purpose of this study included
rescue robots are teleoperated using images from a camera specifying the condition of the camera image related to the
mounted on the robots. This study examined the condition of operability of a robot for a search task in a 2D maze. This
a camera image related to the operability of a robot for a search task is a basic operation of a rescue robot. Qualitative findings
task in a 2D maze. Indices indicating the amount of information
of the camera image related to the robot and the environment
indicated that a robot should be shown on an image and that an
around the robot were defined. A subject experiment by using a FOV should be sufficiently wide to increase the operability of
robot simulator USARSim was performed. In th experiment, 16 the robot [3][4]. Therefore, in this study, first the quantitative
images with various indices are used. The task and the scoring indices for qualitative lessons were determined. Following this,
method of the experiment were determined by referring to DHS- combinations of the quantitative indices were used to perform
NIST-ASTM International Standard Test Methods for Rescue a subject experiment t with a robot simulator (USARSim) [6].
Robots. The results revealed that the score, which indicates the The experiment results were analyzed to discuss and specify
operability, had an extreme value when the indices, (xmin , h), the condition of camera images related to the operability.
were (100, 3000), where xmin indicates the amount of information
related to the robot and h indicates the amount of information
related to the environment around the robot. II. Q UANTIFICATION OF CAMERA IMAGE
Keywords—Rescue robot, Teleoperation, Situation awareness As mentioned in Section I, qualitative findings indicate that
a robot should be shown on an image and that the FOV should
be sufficiently wide to increase the operability of the robot.
I. I NTRODUCTION Therefore, in this study, it was assumed that the amount of
information on an image related to a robot and its environment
Many rescue robots have been developed to search for influences the operability of the robot. Figure 1 shows the
victims and gather information at disaster sites replacing relationship between a camera mounted on a robot, the FOV
human rescue workers [1]. Generally, rescue robots are teleop- of the camera, and the view area. If the position of the camera
erated because their operation requires advanced intelligence. is (xc andzc ), and the posture of the camera θc , the vertical
Additionally, an image from a camera mounted on the robot angle of FOV θv , and the horizontal angle of FOV θh are
is a very important piece of information that is displayed on known, then the coordinates of the points that construct the
the operator screen [2]. view area are obtained as follows:
However, the quantitative condition of the image related zc
xa = + xc (1)
to the operability of the robot is unknown. A few studies tan(θc + θ2v )
focused on the relationship between the camera images and
the operability of the robot. Shiroma et al. compared types of
zc θh θh
camera images and found that a fish-eye camera installed at a ya = θv
tan cos (2)
high position was effective [3]. However, their study involved sin(θc + 2 )
2 2
results that were qualitative. Kimura et al. compared several
angles of a field of view (FOV) of a camera mounted by zc
xb = θv
+ xc (3)
using a robot simulator to determine camera specifications for tan(θc − 2 )
developing robot hardware [4]. However, their analysis was
limited because they only focused on the FOV of the camera.
zc θh θh
Koiji et al. compared the position and the posture of a camera yb = θv
tan cos (4)
mounted on a robot and specified conditions related to the sin(θc − 2 )
2 2
position and posture of the camera that increased operability
[5]. However, they did not include features of the images, and In this study, the amount of information related to the robot
thus the reason as to why the image was effective for the on the image is defined as the x coordinate of the nearest
teleoperation was not clear. point, referred to as xmin . Therefore xmin = xa . Hence if

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 z 1000 2000 3000 ∞ h
Camera
(xc, zc) 100
䐟 䐠 䐡 䐢
Robot y 䐣 䐤 䐥 䐦
-100

a
View area
-300
䐧 䐨 䐩 䐪
(xa, -ya) x

z
b (xb, -yb) -500
䐫 䐬 䐭 䐮
Camera
xmin
(xc, zc) ρ
θv Fig. 2. Camera images used in the experiment. USARSim is used for the
Robot x experiment.

a (xa, -ya) b (xb, -yb)

Camera z
Fig. 1. Camera mounted on the robot and its FOV.
c (xc, zc) θc

xmin becomes small, then the size of the robot on the image
increases. Moreover, the amount of information related to the
environment of the image is defined as the height of the
trapezoid of the view area, termed as h. Therefore h = xb −xa .
Thus, if h becomes large, then the image includes considerable
information related to the environment.
In the study, xmin [mm] = 100, −100, −300, −500 and
h[mm] = 1000, 2000, 3000, ∞ were used for a subject experi-
ment. These values were determined according to the findings
of a previous study [5]. The number of combinations involved
in the study was 16. Figure 2 shows the images used in the
experiment. It was assumed that the robot moved in a low
ceiling environment, and thus the height of the camera zc was
fixed as 600 [mm]. It may be noted that when h = ∞, the
posture of the camera θc was set as θ2v , as shown in Figure 3.
III. E XPERIMENT
A. Experimental method
The number of subjects involved in the experiment was 10.
Ten unrelated students for this research project were chosen
and teleoperated the robot by using a gamepad. The average
age of the subjects is 22.4. They have never operated a robot
using the developed system and never operated a crawler-type
robot. However, all of them have played video games by using
a gamepad. Each camera image is used once. Therefore, one
subject teleoperated the robot 16 times.The order of the images
was random to reduce the influence of the order. A robot
simulator, USARSim, was used to reduce the experimental
setup burden because the total number of runs of the robot
was 160. The robot model used in the experiment was Kenaf,
which was developed by Yoshida et al. [7]. The width of Kenaf
is 480 mm and the length is 1099 mm. It is one of default
robots of USARSim.
Robot θv
x
a (xa, -ya) b (xb, -yb)
Fig. 3. Side view in the case where h = ∞.
The task involved searching for two targets (Eye charts)
in a 2D maze. The environment was defined by referring
to DHS-NIST-ASTM International Standard Test Methods for
Response Robots [8] and the RoboCup Rescue Robot League
competition [9]. Figure 5 and Figure 4 show the environment
of the experiment It was necessary for the robot to avoid
collision with walls and to move as fast as possible from the
start point to the goal point. It was also important for the
operator to confirm the targets.
B. Evaluation method
The evaluation index was called the score, and it was
also defined by referring to DHS-NIST-ASTM International
Standard Test Methods for Response Robots [8] and the
RoboCup Rescue Robot League competition [9]. The score
was calculated by the following equation:
Tr
S = (k1 C + k2 F − k3 W ) , (5)
T
where C denotes the number of targets that are read correctly,
F denotes the number of targets that are read incorrectly,
W denotes the number of collisions with the wall, and T
denotes the running time from the start point to the goal point
( achievement time of the task). In this study, k1 = 10, k2 = 5,

534
Fig. 4. Experiment environment in the USARSim.
3.6 [m]
㽢 䖃
3.6 [m]
䖃
㽢Start/Goal 䖃Target
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the experiment environment.
k3 = 10, Tr = 1200 were set such that they were similar to
the scoring equation of the RoboCup Rescue Robot League
competition [9].
C. Results
The results are shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7. Figure 6
shows the bar graph of the average scores of the experiment.
Figure 7 shows the scores of the experiment obtained using
camera images.
IV. D ISCUSSION
The most interesting finding was that the average score had
an extreme value. Prior to verification, it was proposed that
the increase in the score could be due to a decrease of xmin
and an increase of h. In the experiment, the most effective
combination of (xmin , h) was (−100, 3000). Future research
will involve normalizing the indices. However, the finding
method proposed in this study to determine the most effective
combination can be extended to other robots and other tasks.
Future research will also involve performing the experiment for
other tasks with a similar scheme and storing the quantitative
lessons learnt with respect to the relationship between camera
images and operability.
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Fig. 6. Bar graph of the average scores of the experiment.
Fig. 7. Scores of the experiment obtained using camera images.
The results were statistically analyzed by using the Steel -
Dwass test. The result is shown in Figure 8. As observed, the
difference of xmin led to significant differences in the score.
If xmin exceeded zero, then the robot did not appear on the
camera image. Therefore, the appearance of the robot on the
camera image increased the operability. This was similar to the
qualitative findings of previous studies. However, the score did
not increase with an increase in the appearance of the robot
on the camera image. The results of the experiment indicated
that the conditions wherein only the tip of the robot appeared
on the image marked higher scores.
As shown in Figure 8, no significant differences in h were
observed. However, the score decreased when the h was too
low or too high. Hence, h should be set to approximately
3000 for the robot and the task used in the experiment.
Future extensions of this study may include performing the
experiment with resolved values of h such as h =2400, 2700,
3000, 3300, and 3600. Additionally, the number of the subjects
could be increased to confirm the significant differences.
It is proposed that the reason for the extreme value of the
average score was related to the recognition of the distance

Fig. 8. Results of the statistical analysis.
Fig. 9. Average number of collisions with walls when the robot rotates.
between the robot and the forward wall. Specifically, the robot
sometimes collided with the walls when the robot rotated at the
corners of the experimental field. Figure 9 shows the number
of collisions with the walls when the robot rotated at the
corners. In the task involved in this study, it was necessary
for the robot to move forward near the forward wall prior
to rotating to avoid collision because the width of the road
was not sufficiently wide for the robot. Fig. 10 and 11 show
the 7th and 16th camera image at the corner, respectively. As
observed, the distance between the robot and the wall could
be determined by the operator more accurately by using the
7th camera than by using the 16th camera. Prior to this result,
previous studies indicated that the camera should be mounted
such that the entire body of the robot appears on the image
[3]. This appears to be a promising result with respect to the
camera image mounted on the robot. However, it should be
noted that there may be tasks (for example, when the robot
runs on a rough terrain) that require displaying the entire body
of the robot on the image.
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Fig. 10. The image obtained by the 7th camera when the robot rotates at
the corner.
Fig. 11. The image obtained by the 16th camera when the robot rotates at
the corner.
V. C ONCLUSION
The purpose of this study included specifying the condition
of camera images related to the operability of a robot for
a search task in a 2D maze. This is considered as a basic
operation of a rescue robot. The study involved defining the
indices xmin and h indicating the amount of the information
related to the robot and the environment of the camera image,
respectively.
In the study, 16 combinations of the indices were set and
a robot simulator USARSim was used to perform a subject
experiment. The task and the scoring method of the experi-
ment were determined by referring to the DHS-NIST-ASTM
International Standard Test Methods for Response Robots [8]
and the RoboCup Rescue Robot League competition [9]. The
results indicated that the score indicating the operability had
an extreme value. The maximum score was obtained when
(xmin , h) was (−100, 3000). Additionally, the results of the
statistical analysis revealed that the score involved significant
differences with a difference of xmin .
Future studies will include normalizing the indices xmin
and h to perform the experiment with more subjects and
extending the experiment to other robots and other tasks.
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