Development of Eire-lighting and Rescue Robot for Outdoor Environment using Target Oriented Design Methodology

This paper presents the development of fire-fighting and rescue robot for Outdoor Environment. In the procedure of this development, we follow Target Oriented Design (TOD) which is recognized as the systematic methodology to design a system by specifying the target clearly. For some real fire fighting tasks (e.g. tasks in shopping street and a market), narrow road make it difficult for existing fire engine to access the firing place. On the other hand, for dangerous tasks (e.g. gasoline station and a storehouse) the explosive materials make it impossible for fire-fighters to access the firing place. Moreover, the smoke and the high-temperature caused by fire make fire fighting difficult. In this situation, the solution is to develop the fire-fighting and rescue robot. TOD is performed firstly by analyzing the environment properties of fro place and the demanded tasks and the fire-fighting and rescue robot is manufactured. For safety, the fire fighting robot should be controlled by remote operation to keep the operator away from the fire, and the control system is divided into three parts: the robot controllers, controller for remote operating device and wireless communication system. We have selected and developed appropriate hardware and software for each part of control system with considering TOD. As a result, the fire-fighting robot functions correctly and the performance and usefulness of our control architecture is validated by successfully performing some fire-fighting tasks.