Mehdi Dadvar - Design and Implementation of Rescue Robots

Design and Implementation of Rescue Robots

Natural and human-made disasters are characterized by a great deal of damage and loss of life. Although most (natural) disasters are inherently inevitable, an effective response to a disaster is tremendously essential to control the damages and save lives. Rescue robots can carry out reconnaissance and dexterity operations in unknown environments comprising unstructured obstacles to enhance and accelerate response missions. Although a wide variety of designs and implementations have been presented within the field of rescue robotics, embedding all mobility, dexterity, and reconnaissance capabilities in a single robot remains a challenging problem. In this project, we aimed to develop tele-operative and autonomous rescue robots that exhibit a high degree of mobility at the side of maintaining required dexterity and exploration capabilities for urban search and rescue (USAR) missions.

I contributed to this project in three major ways:

As a team Leader: led the multidisciplinary team of students to design, develop, and test several prototypes of tele-operative and autonomous rescue robots (2014-2017).
As a robot operator: operated the tele-operative robots in various test missions and world RoboCup competitions (2012-2017).
As a research assistant: designed and developed the main electronic systems of multiple prototypes (2011-2017).

Throughout the project, we developed multiple tele-operative and autonomous rescue robots. The details, results and implications of the project is mainly published in two papers:

Design and Implementation of a Maxi-Sized Mobile Robot (Karo) for Rescue Missions

S. Habibian, M. Dadvar, B. Peykari, A. Hosseini, M. H. Salehzadeh, A. H. Hosseini, F. Najafi

[BibTex] [PDF] ROBOMECH 2021

abstract: Rescue robots are expected to carry out reconnaissance and dexterity operations in unknown environments comprising unstructured obstacles. Although a wide variety of designs and implementations have been presented within the field of rescue robotics, embedding all mobility, dexterity, and reconnaissance capabilities in a single robot remains a challenging problem. This paper explains the design and implementation of Karo, a mobile robot that exhibits a high degree of mobility at the side of maintaining required dexterity and exploration capabilities for urban search and rescue (USAR) missions. We first elicit the system requirements of a standard rescue robot from the frameworks of Rescue Robot League (RRL) of RoboCup and then, propose the conceptual design of Karo by drafting a locomotion and manipulation system. Considering that, this work presents comprehensive design processes along with detail mechanical design of the robot’s platform and its 7-DOF manipulator. Further, we present the design and implementation of the command and control system by discussing the robot’s power system, sensors, and hardware systems. In conjunction with this, we elucidate the way that Karo’s software system and human–robot interface are implemented and employed. Furthermore, we undertake extensive evaluations of Karo’s field performance to investigate whether the principal objective of this work has been satisfied. We demonstrate that Karo has effectively accomplished assigned standardized rescue operations by evaluating all aspects of its capabilities in both RRL’s test suites and training suites of a fire department. Finally, the comprehensiveness of Karo’s capabilities has been verified by drawing quantitative comparisons between Karo’s performance and other leading robots participating in RRL.

RoboCup Rescue 2016 Team Description Paper MRL

F. Najafi, M. Dadvar, S. Habibian, A. Hosseini, H. Haeri, M. Arvan, B. Peykari, H. Bagheri

[BibTex] [PDF] RoboCup 2016

abstract: This paper introduces a new package of robotic systems for rescue operations. Particularly, a new advanced autonomous robot and a tele-operative robotic system with a dexterous manipulator for different rescue missions have been designed and implemented. These robots will operate as a practical system to assist rescue personnel in real disaster situations such as earthquakes and explosions. The main capabilities of the system software are simultaneous localization and mapping, navigation, collision avoidance, sensor fusions, victim detection, and exploration. Moreover, the robotic systems are developed on a set of sophisticated mechanical platforms which enhance the mobility ability of both autonomous and tele-operative robots. The 6-DOF manipulator makes the robot capable of accomplishing inspection and manipulation tasks decently. Finally, the design of control systems and electronics controllers play an important role to implement the missions as desired as possible.

Complementary materials can be found here:

Karo: a maxi-sized tele-operative response robot

Adrina: an autonomous rescue robot