The Open Academic Robot Kit: Lowering the Barrier of Entry for Research into Response Robotics

Open Source Software is a vital catalyst within the academic robotics community. Frameworks built on open software, like the Robot Operating System (ROS) and the family of libraries that have grown up around it, ease the process by which researchers and students can create integrated, working systems. This has allowed those who have little experience or academic interest in areas like software engineering, communications or artificial intelligence, to make use of others' contributions and build on them in their own areas of expertise. The Open Academic Robot Kit seeks to foster a similar community around open hardware designs for flexible, customised, low cost academic and research robots. It leverages recent advances in 3D printing and the mass production of microcontroller boards, sensors, smart servos and other components for the Maker community. The emphasis is on the ease with which other researchers, students and members of the wider hobbyist and Maker communities, in different fields, may contribute, replicate and extend the designs

The open academic robot kit

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. All rights reserved. The Open Academic Robot Kit (OARKit) lowers the barrier of entry into robotics research. A community-driven initiative, it was developed in the context of the RoboCupRescue Robot League competition to advance the state of research in response robotics. All mechanical parts are 3D printable, available off the shelf and/ or, ideally, drawn from a set of common parts. All designs, instructions and source code are available online in easily editable form under an open-source licence. These principles allow the OARKit robots to become powerful tools to encourage collaboration across regions, generations and areas of expertise. The principles that govern this initiative can be applied broadly to other robotics applications that require interdisciplinary skills in order to build complete, useful, interesting research implementations

Emergency response robot evaluation exercise

More than 60 robot test methods are being developed by a team led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with the sponsorship of U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). These test methods are being specified and standardized under the standards development organization ASTM International. These standards are developed for the purposes of identifying the capabilities of mobile robots to help emergency response organizations assess the applicability of the robots. The test methods are developed using an iterative process during which they are prototyped and validated by the participating researchers, developers, emergency response users, and robot manufacturers. We have conducted a series of evaluation exercises based on the test method implementations. These events were participated by representatives from all the different segments of the community. As such, these events present a unique opportunity for advancing the test methods, collecting capability data, and identifying robotic technology focusing issues. This paper describes an exercise event that this effort recently conducted. The test methods are developed using an iterative process during which they are prototyped and validated by the participating researchers, developers, emergency response users, and robot manufacturers. We have conducted a series of evaluation exercises based on the test method implementations. These events were participated by representatives from all the different segments of the community. As such, these events present a unique opportunity for advancing the test methods, collecting capability data, and identifying robotic technology focusing issues. This paper describes an exercise event that this effort recently conducted

The Response Robotics Summer School 2013: Bringing responders and researchers together to advance Response Robotics

In this paper, we present the 2013 Response Robotics Summer School, an event for the dissemination of the challenges and Best-in-Class capabilities in response robotics, focusing on explosive ordnance disposal and remote handling. A particularly unique feature of this event was the close integration of the responder community in both the technical and practical sessions. This was made possible by co-locating and jointly running this event with the Bomb Response Technology Seminar, an annual workshop for civilian and military bomb squad personnel. This event also builds on a decade-long legacy of response robotics dissemination events. These events leverage the DHS-NIST-ASTM International Standard Test Methods for Response Robots as a common language with which responders, researchers, industry, students and test administrators may communicate their requirements, capabilities and motivations. It builds on the 2012 IEEE-RAS Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics Summer School and sets the stage for the 2014 IEEERAS Response Robotics Summer School