Locomotive working robots in rescue operations

The aim of this research is to apply locomotive working robots with limb-mechanism to rescue operations, such as searching for survivors and removing obstacles to save survivors in collapsed buildings. The article discusses the exploitation of robots with limb-mechanism whose arm and leg functions are integrated into a limb, and discusses basic experiments of searching for survivors by infrared probing sensors. First, the limb mechanism is introduced and discussed in terms of applicability in the rough terrain of a disaster area. Then the probing sensor is evaluated in terms of this detection range and capability. Assuming the sensor is mounted on the tip of the limb of the robot, a coarse-to-fine scan method to quickly and precisely locate a survivor is proposed. The basic experiments are carried out using a parallel arm to confirm applicability and usefulness of the proposed probing method. An infrared sensor is mounted on the tip of the limb-mechanism robot, and we confirm applicability of the limb-mechanism robot to rescue tasks involving a search for survivors.