Heavy construction machineries are used to rescue and recover natural disasters such as earthquakes or manmade disasters. However in disaster sites, building wrecks, stepped terrain and narrow areas rescue demand, running on rough terrain ability, steering flexibility and structural rigidity. A parallel link steering mechanism is implied in the vehicle that enables them to steer front and rear crawlers. The vehicle can steer 90 degrees to the right and 30 degrees to left, which allows running diagonally and side ways.
A new mechanism has been developed that tilts all four crawlers. It gives the vehicle the ability to run over higher obstacles such as rocks and stairs. In this paper basic features of the vehicle and steering dynamic properties are observed and discussed. Vehicle operational experiments were held to observe the hydraulic characteristic due to the load on hydraulic motors. This field robot could be applied to many fields such as rescue missions, landmine clearance, exploration, agriculture, construction and many other tasks.
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