Mobile platforms when negotiating steps and stairs should be able to control theirs posture in order to avoid sudden tilting or falls. In particular, when considering applications for search and rescue operations where users have a very limited time of operation, the motion on stairs should be automated as much as possible. In this way operators can concentrate on their tasks (i.e. search of survivors and/or exploration of dangerous environments) rather than having to focus on the stability of the vehicle. A simple but very effective mechanism called ldquotailrdquo is introduced. The mechanical design and its control method is presented together with several tests and experiments carried out with a simple tracked vehicle in real environments.

Fire brigades and special agencies are often demanded to operate for search and aid of human lives in extremely dangerous scenarios. It is very important to first verify the safety of the environment and to obtain remotely a clear image of the scenario inside buildings or underground spaces. Several studies have been addressing the possibility of using robotic tools to carry out safe operations. This contribution presents the development of the HELIOS team, consisting of five tracked robots for urban search and rescue. Two units are equipped with manipulators for the accomplishment of particular tasks, such as the handling of objects and opening doors; the other three units, equipped with cameras and laser range finders, are utilized to create virtual 3D maps of the explored environment. The three units can move autonomously while collecting the data by using a collaborative positioning system (CPS). After an overview on the specifications of the team of robots and with respect to previous publications, detailed information about the improvements of the robot mechanical design and control systems are introduced. Tests of the CPS system and HELIOS IX vehicle together with a typical mission experiment are presented and discussed.

The inspection of high-voltage transmission lines is a dangerous and time-consuming job, that relies on especially trained workers operating tens of meters above the ground, and close to live lines with thousands of volts. This paper presents the development of a tele-operated robot designed for preventive maintenance of high-voltage lines. The robot was designed with mobility in mind, so that cable spacers, suspension clamps and other obstacles, which so far have prevented the use of robots for inspection of high-voltage lines, would not hamper the operation of the machine. After careful considerations on mobility, the robot was designed, and a prototype was built. Results of tests, performed on facilities reproducing real field conditions, are also presented in this paper.

There have been several works proposing mobile robots for inspection of high-voltage transmission lines. Those studies addressed mostly locomotion issues, with little attention paid to the sensing task. However, the deployment of sensors around the cables is not an elementary operation. This work indicates which sensors may be most suitable for the inspection of transmission lines, and describes their assembly in a simple and compact structure (Sensor-Unit). In addition, it proposes several manipulator mechanisms (Sensor-Arm) to deploy sensors around the cables and to remove them when necessary. The mechanisms are compared taking into account practical aspects such as assembly, reliability, functionality and results of field experiments. Finally, the design of a high-quality camera for detailed inspection is also described.

Fire brigades and special rescue agencies are often demanded to operate for search and aid of human lives in extremely dangerous scenarios. The use of robotic tools can make those operations safer for the operators and more efficient in terms of time and allocation of resources. This contribution describes the development of the newest tracked vehicle HELIOS IX. This mobile platform equipped with a manipulator represents the first stage of a Japanese national founded project. It aims to the development of a robotic system to be utilized in extreme environments such as rescue operations in heavily stricken urban areas. With respect to the previous prototypes the mechanical design and the system architecture is described. A new gripper is also introduced and tested together with few mobility experiments of the platform.

This paper presents a quadruped-walking robot for demining mission. Robot that can adapt any landscape and handle various tasks by utilizing the legs as manipulator is useful one to ensure the safety of local residents and people engaged in the demining mission. However, it is known that mine removing by human workers is progressing slowly because of the risk of their lives. The proposed robot has various features, such as 1) much wider working area than conventional walking robots, 2) unique drive mechanism, 3) high modularity and cooling mechanism and so on. It is expected to give the workers safety to accelerate the demining.

In this paper, the fundamental concepts of the dinosaur-like robot called TITRUS and the mechanism design of the miniature prototype robot TITRUS-III are mentioned. TITRUS is based on the concept to realize a practical mobile working platform. Its advantages are described on the discussion with two models: the rigid body system and particle system. The features of TITRUS are: 1) realizing high dynamic stability by using the neck and tail as an active dumper when the robot walks; 2) standing with the tail to compose a stable supporting triangle so that the robot can work stably; and 3) enabling it to do various tasks by applying a manipulator to the neck. Finally, the fundamental walking experiments to examine usability of the neck and tail on TITRUS-III are reported.

This paper introduces a novel Shape Feedback Master Slave (M-S) arm system, which is inexpensive and robust to be equipped in the demining robot "TITAN-IX". A M-S arm system is an important element. However, it is very difficult to use the conventional M-S arm system into unpredictable environments such as a minefield, because the control parameters to adapt the environment are mostly unknown. The newly introduced Shape Feedback M-S Gripper (SPADE GRIPPER) for detecting and removing mines is composed of three unilateral position controls without bilateral force control, can work stably in such an unknown environment. The mechanical design and the operation principle of SPADE GRIPPER and several experiments are performed to examine its validities.

In this paper, the motion using the dynamic effect of the neck and tail of the dinosaur-like robot called TITRUS is mentioned. TITRUS is based on the concept to realize a practical mobile working platform. The features of TITRUS are 1) realizing high dynamic stability by using the neck and tail as an active dumper when the robot walks, 2) standing with the tail to compose a stable supporting triangle so that the robot can work stably and 3) enabling it to do various tasks by applying a manipulator to the neck. Finally, the experiments with numerical model and physical model TITRUS-III are reported.

In this paper the fundamental concepts of the dinosaur-like robot called TITRUS and the mechanism design of the miniature prototype robot TITRUS-III are explained. TITRUS is based on the concept to realize a practical mobile working platform. ne explanation addresses its availability with two physical models: a particle system and a rigid body system The features of TITRUS are (1) realizing high dynamic stability by using a neck and a tail as an active dumper when the robot walks, (2) standing with the tail to compose a stable supporting triangle so that the robot can work stably and (3) enabling it to do various tasks by applying a manipulator to the neck. Finally, the fundamental walking experiments to examine usability of the neck and tail on TITRUS-III are reported.

The fundamental concepts of the dinosaur-like robot called TITRUS and the mechanism design of TITRUS-IIII are reported. It is based on practical concepts so that it can be applied in the real world. The walking robot has become one of the most attractive themes in robotics. So far the issue has been how we could realize it. This means that the main theme has been how to make it walk However since the biped robot called P-II appeared, the paradigm has been changing into what the application will be. TITRUS-III is based on the concept to realize a practical application. The features are (1) realizing high dynamic stability by using a neck and a. tail as an active damper when the robot walks, (2) standing with the tail to compose a stable supporting triangle so that the robot can work stably and (3) enabling it to do various tasks by applying a manipulator as a neck. The mechanism of the legs is also distinctive, using a coupled drive to compose four degrees of freedom.

The mechanism design and the fundamental concepts of the dinosaur-like robot called TITRUS-II are reported. It is based on practical concepts so that it can be applied in the real world. The design features include: 1) realizing high dynamic stability by using a neck and a tail as an active damper when the robot walks; 2) standing with the tail to compose a stable supporting triangle so that the robot can work stably; and 3) enabling it to do various tasks by applying a manipulator as a neck. The mechanism of the legs is also distinctive, using a coupled drive to compose four degrees of freedom.

Presents an evolutionary method for robotics. Reactive architecture leads robots to move in the real world adaptively according to a quick response. However, designing adequate complete rules for complex behavior is practically impossible, because interaction among components is unlikely to be completely known. To approach this difficult design problem in the arbitration of the interaction organizing a system, a new approach "gate growth", which is a grammar encoding network construction method, is presented. The methodology consists of two components: a cellular automaton (CA) as a connection algorithm and an NAND array as a device model. Through genetic algorithm operations, rules forming the CA are evolved to achieve given tasks. In application to a wall following problem with Khepera, the possibility of building task achieving behavior out of the gate growth is shown.

It is well known that subsumption architecture (SSA) gives a great impact on the robot design methodology. However there are still some shortfalls on SSA due to the lack of learning ability. An SSA with learning ability is expected to produce a more powerful SSA, in terms of flexibility, robustness, etc. Here a new extension of SSA is proposed, which is a kind of distributed SSA with behaviour networks as the learning function. This specialized distributed SSA behaves like multi-autonomous agents. The proposed method can be partitioned into two layers: an upper layer and a lower layer. The upper layer performs the learning of mimic impression and in turn commands the SSA agents in the lower layers. Through the real world experiment the effectiveness and adaptability of the proposed architecture are shown.