Snake Robots Seminar Report

Robotics in Biomemics-Snake Robot Seminar Report 03
INTRODUCTION
In the past two decades it is estimated that disasters are responsible
for about 3 million deaths worldwide, 800million people adversely
affected, and property damage exceeding US!0 billion" #he recent
earth$ua%e in #ur%ey in &ovember of '((( left )00 dead and !000 in*ured"
+any of these deaths were from structural collapse as buildings fell down
onto people" Urban Search and ,escue involves the location, rescue
-extrication., and initial medical stabili/ation of victims trapped in confined
spaces" 0oids formed when a buildings collapse is one instance of a
confined space" Urban Search and ,escue may be needed for a variety of
situations, including earth$ua%es, hurricanes, tornadoes floods, fires,
terrorist activities, and ha/ardous materials -ha/mat. accidents" 1urrently, a
typical search and rescue team is composed of about ten people, including
canine handlers and dogs, a paramedic, a structural engineer, and various
specialists in handling special e$uipment to find and extract a victim"
1urrent state of the art search e$uipment includes search cameras and
listening devices" Search cameras are usually video cameras mounted on
some device li%e a pole that can be inserted into gaps and holes to loo% for
signs of people" 2ften a hole is bored into the obstructing walls if a void is
suspected to exist on the other side" #hermal imaging is also used" #his is
especially useful in finding warm bodies that have been coated with dust
and debris effectively camouflaging the victim" #he listening devices are
highly sensitive microphones that can listen for a person who may be
moving or attempting to respond to rescuers calls" #his hole process can
ta%e many hours to search one building" If a person is found extrication can
ta%e even longer" #his paper presents the developments of a modular robot
system towards US3, applications as well as the issues that would need to
be addressed in order to ma%e such a system practical"
Dept. of ECE MESCE Kuttippuram
'
RESCUE ROBOTS
,ecent natural disasters and man4made catastrophes have focused
attention on the area of emergency management arid rescue"#hese
experiences have shown that most government5s preparedness and
emergency responses are generally inade$uate in dealing with disasters"
1onsidering the large number of people who have died due to reactive,
spontaneous, and unprofessional rescue efforts resulting from a lac% of
ade$uate e$uipment or lac% of immediate response, researchers have
naturally been developing mechatronic rescue tools and strategic planning
techni$ues for planned rescue operations" ,esearch and development
activities have resulted in the emergence of the field of rescue robotics,
which can be defined as the utili/ation of robotics technology for human
assistance in any phase of rescue operations, which are multifacetted and
vary from country to country due to regional policies, the types of disasters,
and the different compositions of rubble in the disaster areas" 2ther aspects
of rescue robotics include6
7etection and identification of living bodies
,outing and8or clearing of debris in accessing the victim
9hysical, emotional, or medical stabili/ation of the survivor by
bringing to him8her automatically administered and telemetered first
aid
:ortification of the living body for secure retrieval against any
falling debris and possible in*uries
#ransportation of the victim"
;
#hese operations also vary in character for different %inds of disaster
environments, such as urban areas, underground, or underwater, which are
unstructured and technologically difficult for humans to access" #he critical
issues in rescue are the expediency and compliance of rescue tools" #he
other ma*or rescue problems encountered are6
&ondexterous tools are generally cumbersome, destructive, and
usually directly adapted from construction devices"
7ebris4clearing machines are heavy construction devices that,
when functioning on top of rubble, trigger the rubble to cave in"
#ool operation is generally very slow and tedious and does not
ta%e into consideration prior attempts on the same spot -they do
not learn from the on4the4spot trials., yielding many unsuccessful
repetitions"
3lthough a few detectors are available, the search for survivors is
mainly based on sniffing dogs and human voices, where calling
and listening re$uires silence and focused attention that is very
difficult due to over4 wor%ed, exhausted, and depressed rescue
wor%ers"
#he supply of first4aid can only be done when at close proximity
to the survivor, a distance fre$uently reached when the critical
timing for survival is exceeded"
#he retrieval of bodies generates extra in*uries since professional
stabili/ation of the victim is seldom obtained and is not
continuously monitored"
3iming at enhancing the $uality of rescue and life after rescue, the
field of rescue robotics is see%ing dexterous devices that are e$uipped with
learning ability, adaptable to various types of usage with a wide enough
3
functionality under multiple sensors, and compliant to the conditions of the
environment and that of the person being rescued"
Constraints on Robotic Rescue Devices
#he field of rescue robotics is see%ing to develop the closest
possible relationship between humans and machines in emergency
situations, leading the way to the possible substitution of men by machines,
based on their autonomy" 3d*ustable autonomy, shape4shifting robots
-holonic robots e$uipped with multiple sensing modules. provide the
necessary flexibility and adaptability needed in the difficult wor%spaces of
rescue missions" ,obotic rescue devices have to wor% in extremely
unstructured and technically challenging areas shaped by natural forces"
2ne of the ma*or re$uirements of rescue robot design is the flexibility of
the design for different rescue usage in disaster areas of varying properties"
3ny two disasters of tie same type do not have damages that are ali%e and,
in the same disaster, no two regions are li%ely to exhibit similar damage
characteristics" #hus, rescue robotic devices should be adaptable, robust,
and predictive in control when facing different and changing needs" #hey
should be compliant to the environment, to changing tas%s, and be
intelligent in order to handle all disturbances generated from different
sources of parametric and nonparametric uncertainty"
,escue robots should be e$uipped with a multitude of sensors of
different types and resolution since detection, identification, and trac%ing of
survivors should continuously be performed" 3s mentioned in sensors are
the wea%est components in the rescue system" #hey need to be robust in
data ac$uisition, with enough intelligence to minimi/e errors and orient
themselves towards maximum signal intensity" Sensors can assume a
distributed role in control when embedded in sensing modules, generally
<
called =logical sensors"> ,obotic devices should be cheap enough so that
they can be manufactured and used in rescue operations en masse" #his
redundancy in number is critical in order to compensate for failures in
rescue mission performance" #he loss of these devices should not be highly
expensive" #hus, multiple inexpensive and less accurate sensors should be
onboard devices rather than expensive speciali/ed detectors" #his leads to
the need for sensor and decision fusion in rescue robots to increase the
robustness in sensing and control, putting a computational burden on data
processing"
Block diagram
!
SERPENTINE RESCUE ROBOTS: E!DIN"
!PPRO!C#ES
Sensor$Based Online Pat% Planning
#his section presents multisensor4based online path planning of a
serpentine robot in the unstructured, changing environment of earth$ua%e
rubble during the search of living bodies" #he robot presented in this
section is composed of six identical segments *oined together through a
two4way, two degrees4of4 freedom -72:. *oint enabling yaw and pitch
rotation -:ig"., while our prototype mechanism -to be discussed later in this
article. is made of ten *oints with ' 72: each"
Con&iguration o& eac% segment
#he robot configuration of this section results in '; controllable
72:" 3n ultrasound sensor, used for detecting the obstacles, and a thermal
camera are located in the first segment -head." #he camera is in a dust free,
?
anti shoc% casting and operates intermittently when needed" #welve
infrared -I,. sensors -Six pairs. are located on the left and right of the
*oints of the robot along its body -:ig".
'ec%anical la(out o& t%e )ront section o& t%e snakelike robot
ocal ma* building
Modified distance transform
#he modified distance transform -+7#. is the original distance
transform method modified for sna%e robot such that the goal cell is turned
in to a valley of /ero values within which the serpentine robot can nest"
2ther modifications are also made to render the method on line
)
7istance transform is first computed for the line of sight directed
towards the intermediate goal, without ta%ing into account
sensorial data about obstacles and free space" #his is the goal4
oriented planning"
#he obstacle cells are superimposed on the cellular wor%space"
#his modification to the original distance transform integrates I,
data that represent the obstacles are assigned high values"
#his modification of partitioning the distance transform -7#.
application into goal oriented and range4data oriented speeds up the
planning considerably, rendering it online" It is also observed that 7#
performed for an intermediate goal at an angular displacement from the line
of sight different than /ero angle displacement first" #hen, the resultant
wor%space matrix is rotated by the re$uired goal angle" Since the matrix
resolution is finite -in our case '00@'00., some cells remain unassigned"
#herefore, we pass the matrix through a median filter that removes glitches
in local map caused by un assigned cells"

'DT$ Based e+*lorator( *at% *lanning met%odolog(
#he ma*or aim of the serpentine search robot is to find and identify
living beings under rubble and loc% onto their signals until they are
reached" #herefore, local map building is an essential component of our
path planning approach" Since the ob*ects in the rubble environment are
expected to change position and orientation, the local map is used to find
the next desired position of the robot on its way to a goal, the living being,
placed in an initially un%nown but detected location"
8
#he ultrasound sensor scans to determine obstacles and free space
and develops a local map" #hus, sensory data constructs a local map within
this sensor range" 3fter the local map is obtained, the next possible
intermediate goals are found by considering points that are at the middle of
the arcs representing free space" #he intermediate goal is selected from the
candidate next states by considering the directions of the candidate states
relative to the robot5s head" In real applications, the direction that gives the
highest signal energy -thermal, sound. received from the goal -living being.
is selected as an intermediate goal" #he intermittent function of the camera
is also used for choosing the most appropriate intermediate goal" Aowever,
in the simulation here, we represent, for illustrative purposes, the
magnitude of the signals coming from the main goal as inversely
proportional to the distance between sensor and goal" #hus, this distance
becomes minimum when the robot sensor faces the goal that is an
emulation of the maximum signal energy coming from the goal" 3fter the
intermediate goal is found, the +7# method is applied, and the robot
moves to this intermediate goal by using the serpentine gaits that are
selected from those with minimum cost in the output of +7#" #he cost
function F-s. of the possible next gait state s is formulated as
Bhere w
i
is the weight of the ith control point, and 1-x
i
,y
i
. is the
cost value obtained from the +7# for the ith control point located at x
i
and
y
i
" Six discrete control points are ta%en into consideration and are used for
calculating a cost function for a gait" #hese control points are used to find
the candidate cells where each of the robot segments could possibly move
after deciding upon a gait" So, each of these cell values are multiplied with
a weight value representing the possibility in candidacy of each cell and
(
added to the cost function" Beights of control points i depend on the
ran%ing of the importance of contribution of each segment i to the sna%e
displacement" #his importance is a degree of constraint put on that segment
during serpentine locomotion" 3 gait is selected such that it has minimum
cost, which is a way of demonstrating that this gait is the one that re$uires
the least body energy in its reali/ation in the corresponding local map"
#hus, we assign weights for each control point such that the front section
has the maximum value and the end section has the minimum value" Bhen
the sna%e has to bac%trac% on its path, the weights are reversed6 the tail
portion having maximum value and the front a minimum value" 3fter
reaching the intermediate goal, the robot ma%es a new scan and determines
a next intermediate goal in this new local map" #his process is repeated
until the robot reaches the closest neighborhood of the main goal" :ig
represents a sample of -sna%e C environment. interactions trac%ed by a
simulation program, while :ig"< shows the local map built by sensory data
obtained for this -sna%e C closest4environment. interaction" In :ig, the
fishbone structure on the robot shows the line of sight of the I, sensor pairs
located on each side of the sna%e robot, while the front radial line is the line
of sight of the ultrasound sensor" #he small s$uares in the middle of the arc
are the candidates for the intermediate goal" #he suitable goal is selected
according to its direction relative to the main goal" 3s stated previously, the
one that is closer to the main goal is selected as the next intermediate goal"
'0
! sam*le environment o& t%e simulation
#he cubic obstacle head4front from the sna%e robot in :ig" is clearly
seen in the local map of :ig" In this figure, the different gray levels
represent the cost values obtained from +7#, where dar%er regions
represent minimum values and brighter regions represent the higher cost
values" Since the dimension of a local map is much smaller than that of a
global map, the errors related to location and orientation of the robot are
minimi/ed when compared to finding the location with a global map" Bhen
the intermediate goal is reached, the current local map is not needed
anymore, a new local map is constructed, and a new intermediate goal is
selected"
''
ocal ma* obtained &rom t%e sensors
Ser*entine gaits o& t%e searc% robot
#he locomotion of the sna%e4li%e robot is achieved by adapting the
natural sna%e motions to the multisegment robot configuration" :or the
current implementation, the robot has four possible gaits that result in four
possible next states"
+ove forward with rectilinear motion or lateral undulation -two
separate gaits.6 In rectilinear motion, the segments displace
themselves as waves on the vertical axis" In lateral undulation, the
sna%e segments follow lines of propagating waves in the
hori/ontal ;47 plane"
+ove right8left with flapping motion -flap right8left.6 In flapping,
two body parts of the robot undergo a rowing motion in the
hori/ontal plane with respect to its center *oint and then pull that
center" #his results in parallel offset displacement"
1hange of direction right8left with respect to the pivot located near
the middle of the robot6 #he robot undergoes a rotation in the
hori/ontal plane to the right or left with respect to the *oint at or
nearest to the middle of the sna%e"
';
Simulation Results
3 sample locomotion se$uence is shown in :ig" Since the robot
starts its next gait with initial line up -reset. and ends the gait with a final
line up, the robot is shown as a line in these local maps" In the last version
of our method, this resetting is optional and can be omitted, allowing the
sna%e4li%e robot to proceed into a new gait from the body shape ac$uired
from the last accomplished gait" 3fter the local map is built, the robot
decides the next gait using +7#, then lines up if resetting is possible,
simplifying computational load" If this is not possible, the sna%e robot
directly implements the selected gait from its previously ac$uired body
shape" Intermediate goals are used to proceed towards the main goal"
Sample simulation results are shown in :ig"!, which shows the
displacement of the sna%e4robot among obstacles" #his sample shows the
path followed by the robot as composed of lines and arcs that are the result
of the serpentine gaits used by the sna%e li%e robot" Straight lines in the
direction of the robot are formed by rectilinear motion" Short lines
deviating from the main path are formed by flapping motions" #he arcs on
the path are formed by rotational motion"
'3
Robot movements in local ma*
DE,EOP'ENT O) T#E PROTOT-PE 'EC#!NIS'
3s stated earlier, rescue applications in disaster scenarios re$uire
robotic mechanisms to be hyper4 redundant mechanisms that allows the
mechanisms to effectively adapt to uncertain circumstances and carry out
re$uired activates with necessary flexibility" #he basic units are
concatenate in series to create a simple yet flexible hyper4redundant robotic
prototype4 some of which are shared in this article"
'<
#he specifications of the basic components of the units are made
of super4duralumin alloy get a lightweight structure" #he nominal si/e of
the fabrication units is 8; D 8; D ?) mm with a weight of 300gms" #he
units have a single *oint of '72:"#his units are e$uipped with stepper
motor to drive the *oints, ma%ing it possible to have position as well as
velocity control of the *oint movements" #he tor$ue generated by about
3<times through a series of gear mechanisms" #his results in a maximum
available tor$ue of ;0 %gf8cm and the maximum angular speed of !0
0
8s"
when the units are connected in series, this nominal specification allows
each *oint a capability to lift five similar units, connected in series, from a
hori/ontally extended configuration" 9otentiometers are installed in the
units to measure the angular position of the *oints axis" #he present design
allows a maximum C84 ?0
0
range of angular movement" #o limit switches
are used to sense the extremities of the moving components that are used
by the logic circuit to override the motor controller and activate or
deactivate the actuation"
'!
2ne of the special features of the present design of the basic unit is
that the unit can be concatenated with the optional (0
0
shift between the
ad*acent unit -:ig." #his option ma%es it possible to assemble a hyper4
redundant mobile robot with movements in 347 space" #he unit also allows
the option of attaching passive wheels to enable serpentine movement on
relatively flat surface" 3 brief description of some possible modes
-serpentine gaits. is mentioned below"
#wisting mode6 In this mode, the robot mechanism folds certain *oints
to generate a twisting motion within its body, resulting in a side4wise
movement"
Bheeled4locomotion mode6 #his is one of the common wheeled4
locomotion modes where passive wheels -without direct drive. are
attached on the units, resulting in low friction along the tangential
direction of the robot body line and increasing the friction in the
direction perpendicular to that E!F"
'?
Gridge mode6 In this mode the robot configures itself to =stand> on its
two end units in a bridge4li%e shape" #his mode has the possibility of
implementing two4legged wal%ing4type locomotion" #he basic
movement consists of left4right swaying of the center of gravity in
synchronism by lifting and forwarding one of the supports li%e,
bipeclal locomotion" +otions such as somersaulting may be other
possibilities"
,ing mode6 #he two ends of the robot body are brought together by its
own actuation to form a circular shape" #he drive to ma%e the uneven
circular shape rotate is expected to be achieved by proper deformation
and shifting of the center of gravity as necessary"
Inching mode6 #his is one of the common undulatory movements of
serpentine mechanisms" #he robot generates a vertical wave shape
using its units from the rear end and propagates the =wave> along its
body, resulting in a net advancement in its position"
Specification of prototype unit
!ctuator Ste**ing 'otor
+aterial 3luminum alloy
7imension 8; x 8; x ?) mm
3
Beight 300 g
+ax" #or$ue ;0 Hgf8cm
+ax" 3ngle 0elocity !0
0
8s
Bor%space C84 ?0
0
#he following sections will consider the twisting mode and the
wheeled locomotion mode and will present some of the preliminary results"
T.isting 'ode o& ocomotion
In the twisting mode, two of the *oints of the robot body are bent in
a way that the rest of the body experiences a twisting force, resulting in a
')
side4wise shift after each twist" Since, in this case, no other parts of the
robots are moved, the robot can effectively be considered as a three lin%
robot" Since, in this mode, the number of actuated *oints is very small, this
is a very fault4tolerant mode of movement" Iven in the case of the failure
of a number of *oints, this mode may be applicable" In :ig", the method of
generation of the twisting motion is shown"
In the present wor%, two *oints are assembled with a (00 shift and
actuated to reali/e the desired motion" 3s shown in :ig" the ad*acent unit
axles -with (0J offset. are referred as j
'
and j
;
" Ket /
i
be the rotational axis
of the ith *oint j
i
" Ket us refer the three effective lin%s as K
'
, K
;
and K
3"
Ket
the initial condition -state '. be that K
'
is displaced by a relative angle of ,
with respect to K
;
-by the *oint *
'
. and the relative angle between K' and K3
is %ept to 0
0
-by the *oint *
;
. It is assumed that all other lin%s are fixed in a
straight4line alignment, i"e", the relative angular displacement between the
ad*acent lin%s is 0
0
"
:rom this initial state, the *oint *
'
is driven in the counter cloc%wise
-positive. direction and *oint *
;
in cloc%wise -negative. direction at the
same time -state ;." Bhen the relative angle at *
'
becomes 0J, and the
relative angle at *
;
becomes
d
the robot body turns to one side by (0J -state
3., as shown in :ig" "
3n example of twisting locomotion using the developed prototype is
shown in :ig" In that assemblage, each consecutive unit is offset by (0J,
and ten such units are connected together" #he fifth and sixth units from
one end are used for the actuation drive" If the active units are driven by
two (0J phase4shifted sine waves, the robot body will generate a smooth
'8
and continuous side4turning locomotion" In :ig", three consecutive (0J,
turning4action se$uences are shown"
/%eeled ocomotion
#o reali/e smooth, undulatory serpentine movement, it has been
shown that there must be a large difference between the friction along the
tangential direction and the perpendicular direction at any point of the robot
body" In the present wor%, as shown in :igs -schematic and prototype.,
drive4less, passive wheels are attached to the units" #his ma%es it possible
to achieve that necessary condition of undulatory motion"
/%eeled$ locomotion mode
If a sinusoidal drive is applied to the *oints with proper positional
phase difference, the mechanism will move forward following a serpentine
curve" In this mode, it is possible to get faster locomotion on a relatively
flat surface" 2n the other hand, on uneven or irregular surfaces, this mode
of locomotion is not li%ely to be an effective option" 3lso, in the case of
'(
surfaces with very low friction -e"g", over ice., efficiency is li%ely to be
low" #he top4view of the prototype motion in this mode is shown in :ig"
#he frames in :ig"'3 are ta%en at an interval of < s, and the distance
scale is mar%ed with !04cm separation" In the prototype, ten units are
connected with (0J offset of the *oint axis" #hus, five of the units are
actually in contact with the floor" In the experiment shown, actuation was
given to those five units only, and the other *oints are %ept fixed" #hose
fixed *oints may also be driven if movement in the third dimension is
desired" In the experiment, the actuations are designed to generate a
sinusoidal angular displacement of *oint axes with a fre$uency of0"'; A/"
#he amplitude of angular oscillation of the active *oints was selected to be
;<J" #he sinusoidal drives between the consecutive active *oints are time
shifted by an amount of '")! s" #he resulting net forward motion of the
robot was <"0 cm8s"
! "!$Based Planning o& S%a*e Transition
#o transform the shape of the hyper4redundant robotic mechanism
from one shape to another without losing structural stability, proper
planning methodology is essential" In this section, one of the possible
methods of shape transformation planning, using a genetic algorithm -L3.
is considered" In the example situation described below, transformation of
the multi4unit serpentine robot structure from resting hori/ontal
configuration to a bridge configuration is considered" #he desired result is
to ma%e the mechanism stand on its two ends in a vertical position" In this
case, a ten4unit4long assembly is considered, without relative angular shift
between the *oint axes"
;0
#he transformation from the initial to the final configuration is
divided in k intermediate configurations" #he genetic search algorithm is
used to find the optimal -according to the desired fitness function. set of
those k configuration se$uences through which the robot shape is to be
transformed" Iach configuration in the genotype is described as the
se$uence of relative *oint angles of the robot body" #he whole chromosome
structure is encoded as shown in the following expression"
Bhere
i
'
represents the ith relative *oint angle in the ith configuration
se$uence"
#o find the optimal se$uence of *oint angles, several performance
indices are considered, and a weighted combination of them is used as the
overall fitness function for the genetic search" #he performance indices,
considered in the present example are stability margin of the structure,
smoothness of angular transformations between successive shapes, and
smoothness in positional change of the center of gravity from one shape to
the next"
#he detail definitions of the indices and other issues of L3 search
parameters are considered elsewhere" #he result of the L3 search is shown
in :ig" In :ig" the dot -. mar%s represent the *oint position and the cross
-D. mar% represents the center of gravity of the whole robot body" :rom
:ig", the stable and smooth transformation from the initial through the final
state can be observed" #he actual implementation of the transformation
;'
se$uence by the prototype mechanism is shown in :ig" #he interval
between the successive frames, shown in :ig" is <s"
;;
:inal Shape
OT#ER !PPIC!TIONS
Bridge ins*ection
#he proposed research will develop and innovative technology which
resolves these short comings" Instead, an inspector, sitting in a truc% on the
bridge roadbed, will control a robot which can MviewM the entire bridge through a
sensor suite deployed at the end of the robot" #his system would reduce the cost
of bridge inspection, increase the safety factor, provide better views of the
bridge, improve the $uality of information, and as an added benefit, decrease
traffic delays that are a result of such an operation"
Rescue o*eration under trenc%
3nother S3, application that has received little attention is the rescue of
victims in a trench collapse" #his is not usually the result of a ma*or disaster li%e
an earth$ua%e, rather these collapses occur while wor%men are digging or fixing
pipes or other underground e$uipment" Gecause this is more mundane, it
receives less press, however the fre$uency of this accident is much higher" Small
robots that can go through sewer pipes or other underground conduits may be
able to find victims" Small robots that can dig may also be able to find victims
more readily"
;3
!D,!NT!"ES
Small in si/e and weight
0ersatility
+odular reconfigurable robots with many modules have the ability
to form a large variety of shapes with large numbers of degrees of
freedom -72:." #he robot may change its shape to suit different
environments" In this fashion the robot is very versatile" :or
US3,, the same system could do a variety of tas%s" 3 robot could
start in the shape of a sna%e to slither through small crac%s and
holes and pipes to find a victim" In addition to being highly mobile,
the versatility
of the system allows it to achieve other tas%s in the highly
constrained environment such as shoring the structure near a
victim" 3n air hose may also be brought to the victim to provide
ventilation in the confined area both to provide oxygen to breathe
as well as removal of possible toxic or flammable gases"
In many extrications, shoring is an integral part" If the unstable
material cannot be removed from above the victim -for example if
a person is trapped on the lower floors of an unstable multi4story
building,. the ceilings and walls need to be shored to prevent
further collapse before rescuers can attempt to reach the victim"
2ne measure of the versatility of a modular system may be the
number of isomorphic configurations that are capable by a given
system E<F" :or many systems, this number grows exponentially
with the number of modules" 3nother measure may be the number
of 72: in the system" #his also grows with the number of modules
though linearly in this case"
;<
,eliability
3nother result of being modular and reconfigurable is the ability of
the system to repair itself E(F" Bhen a system has many identical
modules and one fails, any module can replace it" 3nother factor
increasing the reliability is that a module5s area of influence is
typically local" If one module is not wor%ing properly, since it can
only affect things locally, the errors it introduces may be able to be
compensated by the modules around it" Gasically there are
redundant modules that can either compensate or replace failing
modules" 3s the number of modules increases, the redundancy also
increases" #his may be critical in unstable environments"
Kow expenses
3s the numbers of repeated modules increases, the economies of
scale come into play and the per4module cost goes down" 3gain,
increasing the numbers of modules enhances this effect" 2n the
other hand, the total number of modules still increases" #he
$uestion of exactly which factor effects the total cost of the system
the most is difficult to predict without implementing a full system
to determine the components needed and their relative costs"
;!
DIS!D,!NT!"ES
1annot optimi/e its own path
Aard to control
Sna%e robots have many applications, but are hard to control" 3
person cannot simply operate each *oint of a sna%e individually
because there are too many" #hese robots re$uire a motion
planning algorithm" +otion planning for sna%e robots is difficult
because the robots have many internal degrees of freedom that
have to be coordinated to achieve purposeful motion" In motion
planning *argon, this means the sna%e robots exist in large
dimensional configuration spaces" 2ur wor% will ma%e it possible
for the robots to operate in several different modes from fully
autonomous to human4guided

;?
CONCUSION
S3, robotics is aiming at developing dexterous device e$uipped
with the ability to learn from prior rescue experience that are adaptable to
variable types of usage with a wide enough gait functionality under
different sensing modules an are compliant to the environmental and
victim5s conditions +ultiNagent systems are, li%ewise, focusing on
adaptability multifunctionality through modularity, and dexterity, where
intelligence is the basic property of the agents"
Giological'y inspired robots -specifically, sna%eN and worm4li%e
robots with modularity and hyper4redundancy. generally perform detection
and identification of victims an path planning in search of survivors to be
rescued using decision and control methodologies from the aforementioned
concepts without collision" Serpentine mechanisms, with their wide range
of capabilities, face ma*or design challenge mechanism design, path
planning, control, and sensor integration" #his research addresses control
and sensor integration path planning and an actuated *oint module that is
design and implemented as the basic component of a serpentine rob
platform" 3 number of such modules can be connected in desired way to
create a simple yet flexible hyper4redundant serpentine structure" Some of
the features of such mechanisms and possible locomotion modes are
discussed with relevant experimental performances" #he applicability of
such serpentine structures adapting to different environmental situations
and locomotion re$uirements, is also presented using L3Nbased shape
transition planner"
;)
RE)ERENCES
#" Hamegawa, :" +atsuno, and ," 1hatter*ee, =9roposition of
twisting mode of locomotion and L3 based motion planning for
transition of locomotion modes of 34dimensional sna%e4li%e robot,>
in 9roc" IIII Int" 1onf" ,obotics and 3utomation, ;00;, vol";, pp"
'!0)4'!';"
www"Serpentine Search ,obots"com
S" Airose, Giologically Inspired ,obots -Sna%e4li%e Kocomotors and
+anipulator." Kondon, U"H"6 2xford Univ" 9ress, '((3"
;8
!C0NO/ED"E'ENT
I extend my sincere than%s to Pro&1 P1,1!bdul #ameed2 Aead of
the 7epartment for providing me with the guidance and facilities for the
Seminar"
I express my sincere gratitude to Seminar coordinator
'r1 'ano3 0, Staff in charge, for his cooperation and guidance for
preparing and presenting this seminar"
I also extend my sincere than%s to all other faculty members of
Ilectronics and 1ommunication 7epartment and my friends for their
support and encouragement"
T%omas 0101
;(
!BSTR!CT
#he utili/ation of autonomous intelligent robots in search and rescue
-S3,. is a new and challenging field of robotics, dealing with tas%s in
extremely ha/ardous and complex disaster environments" 3utonomy, high
mobility, robustness, and modularity are critical design issues of rescue
robotics, re$uiring dexterous devices e$uipped with the ability to learn from
prior rescue experience, adaptable to variable types of usage with a wide
enough functionality under different sensing modules, and compliant to
environmental and victim conditions" Intelligent, biologically inspired mobile
robots and, in particular, serpentine mechanisms have turned out to be widely
used robot effective, immediate, and reliable responses to many S3,
operations" #his article puts a special emphasis on the challenges of
serpentine search robot hardware, sensor4based path planning, and control
design"
30
CONTENTS
I&#,27U1#I2& '
,IS1UI ,2G2#S ;
1onstraints on ,obotic ,escue 7evices
SI,9I&#I&I ,IS1UI ,2G2#S6
KI37I&L 399,231AIS ?
Sensor4Gased 2nline 9ath 9lanning
Kocal map building
+7#4 Gased exploratory path planning methodology
Serpentine gaits of the search robot
Simulation ,esults
7I0IK29+I&# 2: #AI 9,2#2#O9I +I1A3&IS+ '<
#wisting +ode of Kocomotion
Bheeled Kocomotion
3 L34Gased 9lanning of Shape #ransition
2#AI, 399KI13#I2&S ;;
3703&#3LIS ;3
7IS3703&#3LIS ;!
12&1KUSI2& ;?
,I:I,I&1IS ;)
3'

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