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This paper presents a novel sensing mode for using mobile robots to collect disaster ground information when the ground traffic from the rescue center to disaster site is disrupted. Traditional sensing modes which use aerial robots or ground robots independently either have limited ability to access disaster site or are only able to provide a bird&rsquo, s eye view of the disaster site. To illustrate the proposed sensing mode, the authors have developed a Multi-robot System with Air Dispersal Mode (MSADM) by combining the unimpeded path of aerial robots with the detailed view of ground robots. In the MSADM, an airplane carries some minimal reconnaissance ground robots to overcome the paralyzed traffic problem and deploys them on the ground to collect detailed scene information using parachutes and separation device modules. In addition, the airplane cruises in the sky and relays the control and reported information between the ground robots and the human operator. This means that the proposed sensing mode is able to provide more reliable communication performance when there are obstacles between the human operators and the ground robots. Additionally, the proposed sensing mode can easily make use of different kinds of ground robots, as long as they have a compatible interface with the separation device. Finally, an experimental demonstration of the MSADM is presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed sensing mode.

The manipulator may contact with obstacles when working in an unknown environment. The manipulator using position control only is unable to get away from the obstacle after contact with obstacles. Moreover, the contact force between the manipulator and the obstacle and the output torque of the joint actuator will increase with the increase of position error, which may damage the manipulator. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a control method of manipulator based on admittance control in unknown environment. This method applies a virtual force in the direction of vertical with contact force, and adopts admittance control in the direction of contact force and vertical with contact force respectively. The simulation results show that, compared with the manipulator only using position control, this method can reduce the output torque of joint actuator as well as when the manipulator contact with the obstacle, but also can make the manipulator get out of the obstacles to arrive at the target position. Therefore, using this method, the manipulator can complete the task safely in unknown environment.

It is a new research hotspot to improve the jumping and crawling ability of humanoid robot. A novel anti-impact and lightweight humanoid waist joint structure is presented. The degree of freedom of roll and pitch is provided by sphere-pin pair, and driven by two lead screws in the back. When the robot is in the upright state, the rotation axis of DoF of roll is not in the horizontal direction. It is vertical to the rotation axis of DoF of pitch, but not vertical to that of yaw. A kinematic model and corresponding rotation matrix calculation method is proposed for this structure. The motion space and attitude changes are numerically analyzed. The lengths of the screw rod with different attitudes are calculated by inverse kinematics calculation using the rotation matrix. The numerical results show that the structure can adapt to the requirements of the robot jumping and crawling on the motion space and attitude, and all the poses can be smoothly controlled.

This paper introduces a search-and-rescue robot system used for remote sensing of the underground coal mine environment, which is composed of an operating control unit and two mobile robots with explosion-proof and waterproof function. This robot system is designed to observe and collect information of the coal mine environment through remote control. Thus, this system can be regarded as a multifunction sensor, which realizes remote sensing. When the robot system detects danger, it will send out signals to warn rescuers to keep away. The robot consists of two gas sensors, two cameras, a two-way audio, a 1 km-long fiber-optic cable for communication and a mechanical explosion-proof manipulator. Especially, the manipulator is a novel explosion-proof manipulator for cleaning obstacles, which has 3-degree-of-freedom, but is driven by two motors. Furthermore, the two robots can communicate in series for 2 km with the operating control unit. The development of the robot system may provide a reference for developing future search-and-rescue systems.

Miniature robots can't carry too many sensors for obstacle avoidance due to its small volume. In this paper, we applied the method based on low-cost local map for obstacle avoidance that uses infrared sensors and MPU6050. Firstly, we introduced the robot and its kinematic model. Secondly, proposed the criterion of robot be trapped. Thirdly, we studied the infrared data filtering with FIR filter and local map building. Fourthly, proposed the free movement area method for two wheeled robot route planning. Finally, we did the contrast experiment, result shows that the robot can escape from the U-shape trap that use the method applied in this paper while the traditional method can't.

Miniature robot has becoming a preferable choice for outdoor reconnaissance task due to its flexibility. However, miniature robot tends to have poor navigation ability because of the limited perception ability coming with the constrained space. This paper focus on the navigation problem of outdoor miniature reconnaissance robot with limited sensing ability in unknown obstacles environment. In this paper, Global Position System (GPS), magnetometer and infrared distance sensor based artificial potential filed method is adopted to navigation robot go through obstacles. Meanwhile, local minimum trapped detection has been analyzed. Simulations and experiment proves the effectiveness of proposed method.

The map building is the prerequisite in the mobile robots' autonomous operation in an unknown environment. Most current mobile robots mainly use the 2D map, and the others which use the 3D map have some shortcomings such as the complex data processing algorithm, large computation and time-consuming and so on. The paper presents a 3D data scanning system that combined with the 2D laser radar and the precise rotation head to capture the information of the unknown environment, and building a coordinate system model for calculating the transform matrixes of each coordinate system. Then the pose of the robot got by the odometer and electronic compass, the improved ICP algorithm and the transform matrixes are combined to process the environment information for getting the 3D point cloud, finally the 3D point cloud is displayed on the OpenGL. At last, the experiment about the 3D map building is gone on in the laboratory corridor and the indoor environment. The experimental results show that this 3D data scanning system has higher efficiency and accuracy, and can better reflect the real situation of the environment.

This paper is authored to describe a control framework that is designated for hydraulically actuated quadruped robot to trot on rough terrain. In order to succeed in trotting on rough terrain, two controllers are synthesized: i) Dual Length Linear Inverted Pendulum Method (DLLIPM), ii) Active Compliance Control. The first controller computes the hydraulic quadruped robot's trajectory, which not only effectively reduces the energy dissipation, but also promotes the workspace utilization. The second controller, in the meantime, utilizes the force sensors which are located at the bottom of the feet to calculate the joint displacements that are associated with ground reaction force errors, using admittance blocks. In addition to position feedback, these joint displacements are inserted to the position control loop and then updates the orientation input. In doing so, the hydraulic quadruped robot can perform the given locomotion task in an actively-compliant manner. Using the proposed frame work, the overall control performance is tested by hydraulic quadruped robot on rough terrain via simulation and the results turn out to be positive.

Aerial dispersal miniature reconnaissance robots can be used in many areas such as natural disasters, man-power disasters, military reconnaissance and so on. Due to its characteristics of fast response, long detection distance and large coverage area, aerial dispersal miniature reconnaissance robots are suitable for these situations mentioned above. However, aerial dispersal miniature reconnaissance robots demand a portable system which is easy to operate. Moreover, another crucial problem from the aerial dispersal miniature reconnaissance robot is that it demands excellent anti-impact property so that it can be thrown from high altitude. To solve the problems above, this paper presents a framework of this aerial dispersal miniature reconnaissance robot launch module. In addition, the mechanical design of each part of this launch module is presented in this paper. Finally, both simulation and experiments showed that this aerial dispersal miniature reconnaissance robot launch module is reliable and practical.

Coal mine is a very dangerous field because various fatal factors menace people especially when coal mine explosion happens. For the reason that rescuers have to know the mine tunnel actual situation and at the same time, it is very dangerous for rescuers to go into mine tunnel because of the unknown environment, a kind of coal mine detect robot and an unknown environment 2-D map building system are introduced. This paper introduces a coal mine detect robot which is a kind of tracked robot that is suitable for running in explosion environment. In order to solve the problem of detecting an unknown environment, we introduce a 2-D map building system based on linear template clustering algorithm via laser radar. Finally, the experiment shows that this coal mine detect robot and the 2-D map building system are reliable and practical.

When the robot appears, various researches on it have been coming out one after the other and changing rapidly. The robotics is refined day after day. Especially in the recent decades, with the emergence and developments of internet and the computers, it makes a remarkable progress and reaches an unprecedented level. The robot is of wide applications because of the rapid developments of robotics. Thus we make more requirements in all aspects of the robots. Compared to the wheeled robots, though the legged robot is lacking in speed efficiency, it's more suitable for practical applications for its high adaptability to environment as well as excellent flexibility in exercise. The overall performance of the quadruped robots is more outstanding that makes it a hot spot in the researches of every country. Then how to maintain the stability of the quadruped robot motion and adaptability to complex terrain, and improve the flexibility of the whole motion process at the same time? This has important significance to its design. For this reason, this paper designs a single drive unit of motion control system, which is based on hydraulic quadruped robot. This paper extracts a driver element from a robot with kinematics and dynamics of the strong coupling complex system and simplifies the analysis of the kinematics and dynamics. In addition, this paper introduces a force control unit and combines position and force control for a single driver element to solve the shortcoming of the existing pure position control stiffness is too large. The active compliance control introduced by this paper can guarantee position servo under the idle condition. This system can move compliantly according to impact size passivity, which is equivalent to reduce the stiffness of the system. Finally, this paper introduce the active compliance control method which is based on the original force and position hybrid control. Compared with the original force and position hybrid control, this method has better controllability and can achieve the ideal effect of flexible.