MEC-497 SEMINAR

RESCUE ROBOTS
~A NOVEL STEP TOWARDS DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Presented by:

Akshay S Kumar (AM.EN.U4ME14011)

Ashish U S (AM.EN.U4ME14017)

Ishan A Chavan (AM.EN.U4ME14022)

Harikrishnan R (AM.EN.U4ME14031)
INTRODUCTION
 The world today is laden with unknown and unpredictable disasters which
cannot always be mitigated. In all such cases, a timely rescue system will
help in the reduction of the damage to life and property due to such
disasters.
 To manually undertake such rescue activities, it sometimes becomes too
difficult a deal for humans as it can again prove to be fatal to them. Here
comes the importance and magic of ROBOTICS. The result is a rescue
robot.
 A rescue robot is a robot that has been designed for the purpose of
rescuing people. Common situations that employ rescue robots
are mining accidents, urban disasters, hostage situations, explosions and
domestic search and rescue.
 The benefits of rescue robots to these operations include reduced
personnel requirements, reduced fatigue, and access to otherwise
unreachable areas.
 Robin Murphy
“Real disasters are infrequent, and
every one is different. The robots
never get used exactly the way you
think they will, and they keep
uncovering new bottlenecks and
problems. So it’s an emerging
technology.”
RESCUE ROBOTS
ABILITIES
 Searching
 Reconnaissance and
mapping
 Removing or shoring up rubble
 Delivery of supplies
 Medical treatment
 Evacuation of casualties.
CHALLENGES
 Information processing
of the robot.
 Mobility of the robot.
 Manipulation of the
robot.
 Utilization of the
ROBOTS in all real life
situations
LITERATURE REVIEW
Biomimetic walking robot SCORPION: Control and modelling
(Bernhard Klaassen∗, Ralf Linnemann, Dirk Spenneberg, Frank Kirchner)

 We present the biomimetic control scheme for the walking robot SCORPION using a
concept of Basic Motion Patterns, which can be combined in a very flexible manner.
 Also reflexes are introduced to increase the reactivity and simulation has been done based
on the ADAMSTM simulator. Especially the motion patterns of real scorpions were analysed
and used for walking patterns and smooth acceleration of the robot.
 In the SCORPION project we are developing a biomimetic eight-legged walking robot. The
length of the eight-legged robot is 65 cm. The weight of the fully equipped robots is 12.5 kg
for the eight-legged robot.
 The most challenging parts of a walking robot are the legs. The leg presented here provides
3 degrees of freedom. We feel confident that 3 degrees of freedom is the minimum
needed in a flexible outdoor-capable walking robot, e.g. it provides the possibility to walk
omnidirectional in narrow environments.
 The leg consist of a thoracical joint for protraction and retraction, a basalar joint for
elevation and depression and a distal joint for extension and flexion of the leg.
 The joints are actuated by standard 6W 24V DC-Motors with high gear transmission ratio for
sufficient lifting capacity.
LITERATURE REVIEW
 EXPERIMENTS
i. The motion and velocity of the model was analysed during a constant acceleration for different time intervals to
understand the manoeuvring capacity of the robot.
ii. The trace of the centre of mass was experimentally obtained to verify the stability of the object.

Figure 1. Motion and velocity of the model during a constant acceleration.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Figure 2. Trace of the centre of mass and of foot L1.

Conclusions
i. The regions of stable and unstable walking speed was identified and a
robust acceleration scheme was developed.
ii. Elastic springs have to be added to obtain a real dynamic simulation and
the 1st step was to render the motor-tension units passive. Here the
characteristics of the spring cannot be changed.
iii. In future enhancements a strain gauge would be used to measure the
strains in the springs so as to implement full force control algorithm.
 LITERATURE REVIEW
Mechanism Topology Design for Novel Parallel-Parallel Hexapod Robot
(Yang pan, Feng Gao)

 The Octopus is a hexapod robot designed for research on emergency rescue missions in nuclear plants.
The robot focused on load-bearing capability and adaptability in different unknown radiation scenarios.
 Compared with other legged robots, the main difference is that the robot applied 3 degree of freedom
(DOF) parallel mechanism which improves the payload capability significantly.
 In this paper, first the background and the robot system is introduced. Then mechanism topology design
methodology is mainly discussed. In our design process, the GF set theory is used which design the limb
type from the end-effector requirements. Finally the relative experiments are briefly shown.
 Walking machines have been studied a lot since 1950s, and many research works have been done on this
field. And M. Gorner developed a hexapod walking robot equipped with a large set of sensors. Fred
Delcomyn designed a six-legged robot based on the biomechanics of an insect.
 Bernhard Klaassen invented robot SCORPION using biomimetic control approach. However, most of
walking robots still uses simple serial mechanisms and it is believed the leg mechanism design is still a big
issue while designing a walking robot.
LITERATURE REVIEW
 EXPERIMENTS
i. Both leg working mode and body working mode have been tested.
ii. The robot can also complete tasks like moving people or other heavy stuffs from one place to
another.
iii. It was tested that the robot can stand on its two feet and work with the remaining two legs or can
even stand on 6 legs and use its body to manipulate.
iv. The robot body can move in all 6 dimensional space (3 rotational and 3 translational).

Figure 3. Trying to turn the wheel Figure 4. Carrying load experiment

LITERATURE REVIEW

Figure 5. the robot moves its body up and down to simulate completing some tasks.

Conclusions
i. The robot can walk continuously for about 4 hours with 4 lithium
batteries, which means the robot is not quite energy consuming.
ii. The robot can provide up to 150 kg operational force or carry equal
heavy loads. Figure 5 shows the carrying load experiment while an
adult and his baby were riding the robot. The testing speed is about
0.15m/s with step size of 0.52m.
iii. The experiment results showed that the robot can successfully do
operations of both feet-working and body working modes.
 LITERATURE REVIEW
Gait and trajectory rolling planning and control of hexapod robots for disaster rescue applications
(Hua Deng, Guiyang Xin, Guoliang Zhong, Michael Mistry)

 Legged robots have attracted the attention of researchers because of their superior adaptability to
complex environments than their wheeled counterparts. Legged robots can be divided into two legged
humanoid robots, quadruped robots, hexapod robots and others with more legs. Among these items,
hexapod robots can easily implement statically stable walking.
 Hexapod robots have stronger adaptability to dynamic unknown environments than wheeled or trucked
ones due to their flexibility. In this paper, a novel control strategy based on rolling gait and trajectory
planning, which enables hexapod robots to walk through dynamic environments, is proposed.
 The core point of this control strategy is to constantly change gait and trajectory according to different
environments and tasks as well as stability state of robot. We established a gait library where different kinds
of gaits are included.
 Zero moment point, which indicates the stability of robot, is estimated by a Kalman filter. According to this
control strategy, a hierarchical control architecture consisting of a man–machine interface, a vision system,
a gait and trajectory planner, a joint motion calculator, a joint servo controller, a compliance controller and
a stability observer is presented.
 we proposed a novel hexapod robot called as PH Robot with parallel leg mechanism so as to bring the
advantage of parallel mechanisms to legged robots.
LITERATURE REVIEW
 EXPERIMENTS
i. The assessment for climbing stairs gait was based on pre-setting information of the position and size
of stairs.
ii. Traversing rough terrain: robot was made move through the rough terrain consisting of bricks to test
the ability of trajectory planning, compliance control and stability observing
iii. Pushing recovery: The resistance ability of the robot for external impact force. The PH-Robot was
pushed three times with increasing magnitude of the force.

Figure 6. Snapshots of the PH-Robot crossing rough terrain using the proposed controller.
LITERATURE REVIEW

Figure 7. Pushing the robot Figure 8. Schematic diagram of pushing the robot at different time intervals

Conclusions
i. This paper addresses the issue of control strategy for a hexapod robot applied for disaster rescue in
dynamic environments.
ii. Change gait and trajectory according to environment and robot status in order to keep balance and
achieve assignment goals. Implemented various gaits for different situation.
iii. Compliance control and stability observation are other critical aspects for a walking robot was studied.
iv. Hexapod robots are easier to control compared with humanoid robots because of hexapods’ structure
with stability properties.
v. Hexapod robots are more practical to be used in real disaster scene. Future works will deal with
perception of environment and the cooperation of autonomic control and remote control. Navigation
and positioning are also significant coming works.
OBJECTIVE

 AIM:
1. To introduce the concept of rescue robots to tackle disastrous
situations and aid in rescue operation.
2. To understand different kinds of rescue robots and their various gait
and trajectory planning systems.
3. To compare the relative advantages and limitations of the different
types of robots available.
4. To introduce the idea of using robots for domestic search and rescue.
5. To design a robot that detects the radiation environment and find
human beings; take human beings to safe places; operate nuclear
devices such as nuclear pumps, etc.
OBJECTIVE

 Observations
1. The simple gait and trajectory rolling planning of scorpion robot was
studied and the acceleration-motion graph and the trace of the centre of
mass was plotted. The stable and unstable regions of walking speed was
identified and a robust acceleration scheme for eight-legged walking
robots was developed.
2. In the simulation we could handle much higher forces than our real motors
can deliver. So we will have to add elasticity(like springs) to end up with a
real dynamic walking or even running. In the first enhancement the motion-
tension units will be passive and hence the characteristics of the springs
cannot be changed.
3. In subsequent enhancements strain gauges will be added to measure the
strains in the springs that will allow us to implement full force control
algorithms as well as we are surveying different materials that may be used
to implement adjustable spring systems.
4. The robot focused on load-bearing capability and adaptability in different
unknown radiation scenarios
OBJECTIVE

 Observations
1. Both leg working mode and body working mode have been tested-
robot found stable after 4 continuous hours of working with load on it.
2. The prototype developed was able to detect the radiation
environment and find human beings; take human beings to safe
places; operate nuclear devices such as nuclear pumps and carry
humans.
3. Typical gaits are obtained according to environmental adaptability
and ZMP stability margin.
4. The advantage of hexapod robot in term of inherent stability
compared with humanoid robot was understood, and it also
demonstrates the practicability on travelling rough terrain.
OBJECTIVE

 Applications
1. Emergency rescue missions in nuclear plants.
2. Earthquake rescue missions.
3. Unexplored zones and defence missions.
4. Domestic search and rescue.
OBJECTIVE

 Advantages  Limitations
1. Can explore areas which are 1. All round Power supply.
unreachable for humans.
2. Still a developing technology.
2. Give us precise information about
3. Cost of repairing and maintenance
the affected areas in case of a
is high.
disaster.
3. Can carry out nuclear disaster
rescue missions.
4. Can keep soldiers safe in war.
5. Can endure hostile environment
which are fatal to human beings.
6. Can give u a company for living.
CONCLUSION

1. Rescue robots are an emerging and promising technology for the

future that can replace human risking his life in disaster
management.
2. Rescue robots can endure harsh situations and can be engaged in
rescue missions in military operations.
3. Domestic search and rescue robots can always stay in house and
monitor everything that happens. It can act as a guardian to the
kids when parents are doing job.
 REFERENCE
 Gait and Trajectory Rolling Planning for Hexapod Robot in Complex Environment
(Hua Deng, Guiyang Xin, Guoliang Zhong, Michael Mistry)
 Gait and trajectory rolling planning and control of hexapod robots for disaster rescue
applications
(Hua Deng, Guiyang Xin, Guoliang Zhong, Michael Mistry)
 Mechanism Topology Design for Novel Parallel-Parallel Hexapod Robot
(Yang Pan, Feng Gao)
 Biomimetic walking robot SCORPION:Control and modelling
(Bernhard Klaassen, Ralf Linnemann, Dirk Spenneberg, Frank Kirchner)
 Dynamic analysis of a hexapod robot with parallel leg mechanisms for high payloads.
(Xin G, Deng H, Zhong G, Wang H)