Hisanori Amano

Development of vertically moving robot with gripping handrails for fire fighting

Since there are many high-rise condominiums, ladder tracks are used against high-rise building fire. However, their height is much higher than the reachable height of the ladders. On the other hand, there have been some studies of vertically moving robots by means of suckers on walls. However, their climbing speed and reliability are not enough for use in an actual fire fighting operation. Therefore, we propose a vertically moving robot which utilizes a balcony handrail as a step. We designed and made a full-size trial robot. We built up the dynamic model of the robot, and planned desired trajectories for the robot. Furthermore we designed a hybrid control system that consists of nonlinear feedback and a sequential method. We concluded that the vertically moving robot is useful for fire fighting against high-rise condominiums from the results of experiments.

Development of a transformational mobile robot to search victims under debris and rubble. 2nd report: improvement of mechanism and interface

Mobile robots are expected to support relief activities, after a great scale disaster. These robots need ability to move on/in rubble in order to collect information related to victims and the conditions. In order to attain this purpose, we proposed a transformational mobile robot (CUBIC-R), which can traverse rubble omni-directional. The robots shape is regular hexahedron and each surface has a crawler unit with a couple of crawlers. As each surface is united by transformational mechanism which has IDOF, it can overcome rough terrains (step, stairs, gap and so on) using transformation. Additionally, it can traverse terrains in the direction of the front, back, left or right without rotating the platform, because its shape is cross-shape. As the robot can traverse terrains in the left or right direction if it can not overcome obstacles in the front or back directions, stuck possibility of the robot may be small. Therefore we consider that CUBIC-R can be operated widely in the stricken-area. However, we found that there were several problems in CUBIC-R, such as the heavy weight, the complexity of the mechanism, the stability of the robot and the difficult robot operation. In this paper, we improve the robot mechanism focused on the operability and develop a fundamental robot/human interface in order to solve the above-mentioned problems.

Proposal of a Rescue Robot System in Nuclear-Power Plants– Rescue Activity via Small Vehicle Robots–

We discuss a conceptual design of rescue robots against nuclear plant accidents. We claim that the rescue robots in nuclear plants should have the following properties. (1) The size is small. (2) The structure is simple. (3) The number of the robots is large. This paper studies the rescue robots to rescue people in an area polluted with radioactive leakage in nuclear power institutions. In particular, we propose the rescue system which using the group of small traction robots, set the posture of fainted victims to easy to carry, and carry them to the safety space with the mobile robot for the stretcher composition

Prototype “RT04” that uses flexible mono-tread mobile track

It is expected that robotics is introduced into search and rescue activity, planetary explorer and investigation in extreme environment etc. The robots in such environment need high mobility against extremely rough terrain. Pressure exerted on the terrain is distributing wider, thus tracked vehicles are advantageous, accordingly. Since it is difficult for usual tracked vehicle composed of a pair of tracks to change length/width ratio a lot from 1/1 because of its turning property, serially connected tracked vehicles and paddled tracked vehicles have been introduced in order to improve the mobility. We have proposed a tracked vehicle called flexible mono-tread mobile track (FMT). The body of FMT except both side wall is completely wrapped around only by a track belt, which is possible to prevents sharp or thin edges of obstacle and cloth from penetrating. However the prototypes have rail colliding and derailing problems of the track belt caused by flexion and surface profile of the ground. The objective of the paper is, therefore, to develop a new prototype of FMT called RT04. RT04 adopts one degree of freedom rotational joint in stead of the flexible components and accurately designed guide rail system in order to prevent the belt from colliding or derailing. Rubber sponge grouser is also introduced against obstacle penetration and impact from the ground. Finally, some experimental tests validate the prototype.

Development of a transformational mobile robot to search victims under debris and rubbles

Mobile robots are expected to support relief activities, after a great scale disaster. These robots need ability to move on/in rubble in order to gather information related to victims and conditions. However, there is no mobile robot which has enough movement ability. Mobile robots need big bodies in order to traverse on unstructured terrain composed of big rubbles, but they need small bodies in order to enter in narrow space. In this paper, we proposed novel concept of a transformational mobile robot in order to solve this inconsistency, and manufactured the proposed mechanism and evaluated its fundamental movement ability.

Mobility and Operability of Flexible Mono-Tread Mobile Track (FMT)

In the paper, we show mobility and operability of flexible mono-tread mobile track (FMT) through experiments. For mobility, FMT can climb over a thin plate, recover from lying position on its side, and side wind. As a result, it is partly proven that FMT has enough ability for the complex environment. For operability, FMT is better than a differential type track vehicle in the case that vehicle traces to gentle curves. Since the both mechanism have advantages and disadvantages such that the differential type track can turn in smaller radius, it is useful that we choose better one to adapt various situations.

Posture manipulation for rescue activity via small traction robots

We discuss a conceptual design of rescue robots against nuclear-power plant accidents. We claim that the rescue robots in nuclear-power plants should have the following properties. (1) The size is small. (2) The structure is simple. (3) The number of the robots is large. This paper studies the rescue robots to rescue people in an area polluted with radioactive leakage in nuclear power institutions. In particular, we propose a rescue system which consists of a group of small mobile robots. First, small traction robots set the posture of the fainted victims to carry easily, and carry them to the safety space with the mobile robots for the stretcher composition. In this paper, we describe the produced small traction robots. And, we confirm that the robots can manipulate a 40 kg dummy dolls posture. We also examine the optimal number of robots from a perspective of operating efficiency in the assumption spot.

Development of stretcher component robots for rescue activity

We discuss a conceptual design of rescue robots against nuclear-power plant accidents. We claim that the rescue robots in nuclear-power plants should have the following properties. (1) The size is small. (2) The structure is simple. (3) The number of the robots is large. This paper studies the rescue robots to rescue people in an area polluted with radioactive leakage in nuclear power institutions. In particular, we propose the rescue system which consists of a group of small mobile robots. First, small traction robots set the posture of the fainted victims to carry easily, and carry them to the safety space with the mobile robots for the stretcher composition. In this paper, we confirm that the stretcher component robots could transport and convey a 40 kg dummy doll. And, we also show an application usage of stretcher robot.

A proposal of flexible mono-tread mobile track — a new mobile mechanism using one track and spine-like structure —

In the past decade, search robots in rescue operations have been focused on and developed for the purpose of finding survivors trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. Most of them adopt serpentine mechanisms: they comprise of track-equipped segments that are connected by joints to obtain greater mobility in extremely complex environments. However, they might gather to catch debris between tracks or become stuck due to the mechanisms, in addition, increasing the number of segments would result in gaining weight and complicated mechanism and control system. In this paper, a new mobile mechanism: flexible mono-tread mobile track is proposed and a prototype ldquoRescue mobile track No.2 (RT-02) WORMYrdquo is developed. The vehicle is composed of a ldquoflexible chainrdquo and a spine-like structure. It is examined on mobility performance in irregular environments.

Experimental study of traction robot system for rescue against nuclear disaster

We discuss a conceptual design of rescue robots against nuclear-power plant accidents. We claim that the rescue robots in nuclear-power plants should have the following properties. (1) The size is small. (2) The structure is simple. (3) The number of the robots is large. This paper studies the rescue robots to rescue people in an area polluted with radioactive leakage in nuclear power institutions. In particular, we propose the rescue system which consists of a group of small mobile robots. First, small traction robots set the posture of the fainted victims to carry easily, and carry them to the safety space with the mobile robots for the stretcher composition. In this paper, we describe the produced small traction robots and stretcher component robot. And, we confirm that these robots can manipulate, transfer and carry a dummy doll by the experiment.