Seite - 21 - in Joint Austrian Computer Vision and Robotics Workshop 2020

DesignandImplementationofaMobileSearchandRescueRobot GeorgA.NovotnyandWilfriedKubinger UASTechnikumVienna,Hoechstaedtplatz6,1200Vienna {georg.novotny,wilfried.kubinger}@technikum-wien.at Abstract. For public emergencies such as nuclear accidentsornaturaldisasters,anurgentandreliable description as well as an evaluation of the environ- ment form the basis of all organized search and res- cue (S&R) team plans and actions. If this informa- tion is not available the risks for the rescue services increases dramatically. Mobile robots help to mini- mize these risks by providing information about the disaster site to rescue teams. This paper discusses the needs and requirements of mobile robots in S&R application areas such as nu- cleardisastersandevaluatesresultsachievedduring theENRICH2019trialbasedonthesystemarchitec- tureof themobileS&Rrobot”Robbie”ofUASTech- nikum Vienna. The successful participation of the ENRICH 2019 show that the mobile robot is capa- ble of performing S&R actions during emergencies. 1. INTRODUCTION One of the main reasons for deaths after disas- ters is that it takes rescue teams too long to dis- cover victims because they need to ensure their own safety [13, 22]. Rescue robots are designed for situ- ations like these that are too dangerous for humans, e.g. hostage taking, nuclear or natural disasters [21]. S&R robots eliminate the need for human scouts to expose themselves in hazardous environments by creating an awareness of the situation at the disaster site by providing immediate feedback to the rescue workers before they enter the disaster site [22]. To support the development of rescue robots, since the beginning of the 2000s a number of robot trials and competitions have been held, such as: ”ELROB” - The European Land Robot Trail , ”EnRicH” – Eu- ropean Robotics Hackathon [8], the ”Arctic Robot Challenge” [1], ”Rescue Robot League” [27], the ”DARPA” – Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency[6], the”EuRoC”–EuropeanRoboticsChal- lenges [10] or the ”EU-FP7-ICARUS” [12] project and many other. During these trials different tasks need to be solved in various environments, rang- ing from 2D and 3D mapping to the detection and evacuation of people and manipulation of objects [8,9,1,27,6,10,12]. The remainder of this chapter the requirements for mechanical design, sensor configuration and graph- ical user interface (GUI) for S&R robots are evalu- ated, followed by the evaluation of the implemented hardwareandthedevelopedsoftwareoftheFHTech- nikumViennainsection2. Theresultsachievedwith these setup are highlighted and discussed in section 3. Concluding section 4 summarizes this work and givesanoverviewof futurework. Table 1 summarizes the user requirements for S&R robots collected in [7] and [24]. Disaster areas are Requirements forSearchandRescueRobots Topic Requirement Dimensions The robot platform must fit on 2 stan- dard Euro pallets (120cm x 160cm x 95cm) and must not weigh more than 100kg Nr. of Operators Two people must be enough to operate theS&R robot Resistance IP65 for outdoor unmanned ground ve- hicles (UGV) Autonomy Mustbepossible to immediatelyswitch from autonomous to tele-operated Sensing Video (RGB and/or thermal) cameras forvisual contactwithvictims,3Dsen- sors to generate a structural map of the environment Communication Connection loses will occur→ ad-hoc networks required CommandandControl Simpleinterfacingtechnologiesonlyon high-level tasks Ambient Light Must be capable of working in com- plete darkness as well as light environ- ments EnergyRequirements Energy consumption should be lower than2kVA for recharging Graphical User Interface Camera view(s) from robot’s perspec- tive+ environmental perceptions Sensor and status information of initial state andsensors Bird’s eyeview map Table 1. Summary of system requirements survey, data taken from [7,24] 21