2P2-A04 Remote COntrol Support for Tracked Robots with Flipper Arms : Rollover Protection Strategy using Distributed Touch Sensors

Abstract

The authors aim at development of a rescue crawler robot to search for victims in rubble environment. A tracked robot with flippers "Sinbad" was built for the purpose. The robot has 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) for getting over the rubble. However, it is too hard for an operator at the remote place to control these multi degrees of freedom. In this paper, the authors will explain our approach of the remote control support for the crawler robot with flipper arms. Especially, the authors will explain about our developed distributed touch sensors for the crawler robot, and propose a method of rollover avoidance based on the distributed touch sensor.