A Testbed for Evaluating Robot Team Interaction under Operator Supervision

The use of multiple low cost robotic mine hunters to provide rapid and complete area coverage is a promising new approach to the counter mine problem. Fetch 2 , in development, is a system of four robotic mine hunters that will be capable of cooperatively clearing a field under the supervision of a single operator. The robots feature advanced computational and mechanical components, yet are designed for low-cost duplication. The team of Fetch 2 vehicles evolve from our original Fetch robot that won the 1996 BUGS (Basic UXO Gathering System) competition. Fetch 2 is a testbed on which to address the questions that arise when multiple mine clearing robots are employed to sweep an area. How can a lightly trained technician operate such a complex system? How can the robots cooperate with one another to perform the task most effectively? The Fetch 2 system of four robots and a PC-based operator control station provides an experimental base for testing possible solutions to these questions. This paper describes the mechanical, electrical, and computational components of the Fetch 2 platform and preliminary results.