Unmanned Ground Robots for Rescue Tasks

This chapter describes two unmanned ground vehicles that can help search and rescue teams in their difficult, but life-saving tasks. These robotic assets have been developed within the framework of the European project ICARUS. The large unmanned ground vehicle is intended to be a mobile base station. It is equipped with a powerful manipulator arm and can be used for debris removal, shoring operations, and remote structural operations (cutting, welding, hammering, etc.) on very rough terrain. The smaller unmanned ground vehicle is also equipped with an array of sensors, enabling it to search for victims inside semi-destroyed buildings. Working together with each other and the human search and rescue workers, these robotic assets form a powerful team, increasing the effectiveness of search and rescue operations, as proven by operational validation tests in collaboration with end users

Impact of Flooding on Mine Action in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia

Devastating floods swept through Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia in May 2014. The destructiveness of the floods, landslides and sediment torrents on minefields resulted in significant environmental and security issues. These three countries’ mine action centers launched a joint project cofunded by the Republic of Croatia’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs to develop effective and efficient methods and technologies that might improve the situation. Their research seeks to provide reliable assessments of the flood damage to minefields and generate accurate implications for potential hazardous areas

Unmanned Ground and Aerial Robots Supporting Mine Action Activities

During the Humanitarian‐demining actions, teleoperation of sensors or multi‐sensor heads can enhance-detection process by allowing more precise scanning, which is useful for the optimization of the signal processing algorithms. This chapter summarizes the technologies and experiences developed during 16 years through national and/or European‐funded projects, illustrated by some contributions of our own laboratory, located at the Royal Military Academy of Brussels, focusing on the detection of unexploded devices and the implementation of mobile robotics systems on minefields

Vision-Depth Landmarks and Inertial Fusion for Navigation in Degraded Visual Environments

This paper proposes a method for tight fusion of visual, depth and inertial data in order to extend robotic capabilities for navigation in GPS-denied, poorly illuminated, and texture-less environments. Visual and depth information are fused at the feature detection and descriptor extraction levels to augment one sensing modality with the other. These multimodal features are then further integrated with inertial sensor cues using an extended Kalman filter to estimate the robot pose, sensor bias terms, and landmark positions simultaneously as part of the filter state. As demonstrated through a set of hand-held and Micro Aerial Vehicle experiments, the proposed algorithm is shown to perform reliably in challenging visually-degraded environments using RGB-D information from a lightweight and low-cost sensor and data from an IMU.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, Published in International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC) 201

Operational Validation of Search and Rescue Robots

This chapter describes how the different ICARUS unmanned search and rescue tools have been evaluated and validated using operational benchmarking techniques. Two large‐scale simulated disaster scenarios were organized: a simulated shipwreck and an earthquake response scenario. Next to these simulated response scenarios, where ICARUS tools were deployed in tight interaction with real end users, ICARUS tools also participated to a real relief, embedded in a team of end users for a flood response mission. These validation trials allow us to conclude that the ICARUS tools fulfil the user requirements and goals set up at the beginning of the project

Chapter Operational Validation of Search and Rescue Robots

This chapter describes how the different ICARUS unmanned search and rescue tools have been evaluated and validated using operational benchmarking techniques. Two large‐scale simulated disaster scenarios were organized: a simulated shipwreck and an earthquake response scenario. Next to these simulated response scenarios, where ICARUS tools were deployed in tight interaction with real end users, ICARUS tools also participated to a real relief, embedded in a team of end users for a flood response mission. These validation trials allow us to conclude that the ICARUS tools fulfil the user requirements and goals set up at the beginning of the project

Interoperability in a Heterogeneous Team of Search and Rescue Robots

Search and rescue missions are complex operations. A disaster scenario is generally unstructured, time‐varying and unpredictable. This poses several challenges for the successful deployment of unmanned technology. The variety of operational scenarios and tasks lead to the need for multiple robots of different types, domains and sizes. A priori planning of the optimal set of assets to be deployed and the definition of their mission objectives are generally not feasible as information only becomes available during mission. The ICARUS project responds to this challenge by developing a heterogeneous team composed by different and complementary robots, dynamically cooperating as an interoperable team. This chapter describes our approach to multi‐robot interoperability, understood as the ability of multiple robots to operate together, in synergy, enabling multiple teams to share data, intelligence and resources, which is the ultimate objective of ICARUS project. It also includes the analysis of the relevant standardization initiatives in multi‐robot multi‐domain systems, our implementation of an interoperability framework and several examples of multi‐robot cooperation of the ICARUS robots in realistic search and rescue missions

In-flight launch of unmanned aerial vehicles

This paper considers the development of a system to enable the in-flight-launch of one aerial system by another. The paper will discuss how an optimal release mechanism was developed, taking into account the aerodynamics of one specific mother and child UAV. Furthermore, it will discuss the PID-based control concept that was introduced in order to autonomously stabilize the child UAV after being released from the mothership UAV. Finally, the paper will show how the concept of a mothership UAV + child UAV combination could be usefully taken into advantage in the context of a search and rescue operation

Chapter Unmanned Ground Robots for Rescue Tasks

This chapter describes two unmanned ground vehicles that can help search and rescue teams in their difficult, but life-saving tasks. These robotic assets have been developed within the framework of the European project ICARUS. The large unmanned ground vehicle is intended to be a mobile base station. It is equipped with a powerful manipulator arm and can be used for debris removal, shoring operations, and remote structural operations (cutting, welding, hammering, etc.) on very rough terrain. The smaller unmanned ground vehicle is also equipped with an array of sensors, enabling it to search for victims inside semi-destroyed buildings. Working together with each other and the human search and rescue workers, these robotic assets form a powerful team, increasing the effectiveness of search and rescue operations, as proven by operational validation tests in collaboration with end users

Chapter Unmanned Ground and Aerial Robots Supporting Mine Action Activities

Lightweight protective structures and materials such as the personal protective equipment (PPE) for explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) personnel are frequently under investigation globally. Their mechanical response to impulsive loads such as blast and ballistic impacts is critical for establishing the spectrum of their performance against various types of threats. This chapter presents a novel testing technique that incorporates three near-simultaneous impacts in one shot in order to acquire deeper understanding of the dynamic interactions that take place during an explosion. A numerical model of an aramid fabric is developed to examine the parameters that influence the ballistic performance under multiple impacts. Fragment cluster impacts with dense dispersion have increased probability to perforate the target material. Heterogeneous, non-isotropic materials, like most of the ballistic grade protective materials, distribute the energy of the impacts in the form of stress wave streams causing the material to behave differently depending on the formation of the impacting fragments. Experimental work with aramid fabrics against single and triple impacts with the fragment-simulating projectile (FSP, 1.102 g) indicates that the ballistic limit in triple impacts is considerably lower that the ballistic limit in single impacts. The actual ballistic performance against multiple fragment impacts is severely underestimated with the classical single-impact methodologies