Scientists are developing a snare robot for firefighters

Researchers at the University of California at San Diego have developed a prototype two-wheeled robot for intelligence and search for people during a fire. It is assumed that the robot will be inexpensive, fast and easy to use, besides, like a pack of experienced hunting dogs, several robots will be able to jointly inspect the burning building, making a three-dimensional map of the premises in a matter of minutes and detect people blocked by the fire.



The robot resembles Sigway’s electric scooter, but unlike it, it is able to overcome steps and rather high obstacles. This is achieved by a simple and elegant engineering solution: the “torso” of the robot is a flat board that can move up and down relative to the chassis. When moving out, the lower end of this board raises the robot's chassis into the air, and to maintain balance, the robot balances the wheels using them as power gyroscopes. As soon as the wheels climb to the desired height, the robot rests on the obstacle and pulls the “torso” up.



The robot is oriented in space and makes a map of the room using one infrared and two ordinary video cameras, forming a stereo pair. In addition, an “electronic nose” is being developed for it, which will determine the presence of hazardous substances in the air.





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Orientation in a smoke-filled burning building is one of the key problems, on the successful solution of which people's lives depend. In September last year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created a system for automatically constructing a floor plan for firefighters based on a laser rangefinder and a Kinect camera. The sensors of the system are mounted on the chest of the firefighter, and the information from them is drained to the central server, which builds a map of the premises. This greatly facilitates the work of firefighters, but they still risk their lives by entering parts of the building that have not yet been investigated. If you shift this work to robots, the risk will be much less.



The robot presented on video is just an early prototype. Scientists expect to present the final version of the international conference on robotics and automation, which will be held in June next year in Hong Kong. In addition to improving the mechanical part, we are working on improving the recognition algorithms and building 3D models in smoke-filled and rubble-filled rooms and efficiently working together several robots simultaneously, on the principles of group robotics .