ROBOVOLC : Remote Inspection for Volcanoes

This paper discusses the state-of-the-art in the area of mobile robots for outdoor applications with particular attention to extremely rough environments such as those found in volcanic and planetary exploration applications. The paper looks at the areas of locomotion, manipulation systems, sensors, control and navigational methods that are currently available so that the most appropriate can be identified. A design criteria for the proposed ROBOVOLC robot is presented by considering the environment to be faced and the tasks involved for exploration studies.

[1]  R. Siegwart,et al.  An Innovative Space Rover with Extended Climbing Abilities , 2000 .

[2]  David Wettergreen,et al.  Dante II: Technical Description, Results, and Lessons Learned , 1999, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[3]  Mahmoud Tarokh,et al.  Kinematic modeling of a high mobility Mars rover , 1999, Proceedings 1999 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.99CH36288C).

[4]  T.T. Nguyen,et al.  Experiences with operations and autonomy of the Mars Pathfinder Microrover , 1998, 1998 IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.98TH8339).

[5]  Robert Ivlev,et al.  The Rocky 7 rover: a Mars sciencecraft prototype , 1997, Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[6]  Murali Krishna,et al.  Tethering system design for Dante II , 1997, Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[7]  Robert Ivlev,et al.  The Rocky 7 Mars rover prototype , 1996, Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. IROS '96.

[8]  Dimitrios Apostolopoulos,et al.  Locomotion configuration of a robust rappelling robot , 1995, Proceedings 1995 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Human Robot Interaction and Cooperative Robots.

[9]  Jake K. Aggarwal,et al.  Position estimation Techniques for an Autonomous Mobile robot - a Review , 1993, Handbook of Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision.

[10]  Yeshaiahu Fainman,et al.  Estimation of the absolute position of mobile systems by an optoelectronic processor , 1992, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern..

[11]  P. S. Sologub,et al.  Small Marsokhod configuration , 1992, Proceedings 1992 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[12]  Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte,et al.  Mobile robot localization by tracking geometric beacons , 1991, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..