NRI: Small: Robotic Scouts: Augmenting Human Perception for Underground Rescue

NRI：小型：机器人侦察兵：增强人类对地下救援的感知

• 批准号: 1317749
• 负责人: William Whittaker
• 金额: $ 60万
• 依托单位: Carnegie-Mellon University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-09-15 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1317749&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NRI; Small; Robotic; Scouts; Augmenting

Robots are potential tools for life saving in underground rescue operations like mine disasters. Human rescuers are thwarted by roof falls, explosion dangers, quality of air, visibility through smoke and dust, mental stress and physical endurance. The inability of human rescuers to cover sufficient distance in a short time often has fatal consequences for accident victims. Robots which autonomously scout ahead of human rescuers and summarize environmental information can greatly enhance situational awareness, enabling teams to push forward without delay. This proposal envisions immersive, robotically-created 3D models, fused from many sensor sources and created through smoke, dust, mud, flood and fire. These expansive models provide rescuers with visual clarity that are uncorrupted by environmental condition. Illumination artifacts, sensor noise and errors are removed by fusion and intelligent view planning of radical new modalities including LIDAR, RADAR, multispectral imaging and actively-illuminated RGB sensing. While the world has often been captivated by high-visibility mine accidents, robots are tangible tools with visible results that have the opportunity to become the centerpiece of any rescue effort. The disrupting effect of the first trapped miner found and human life saved by a rescue robot would inspire countless people to appreciate the evolving role of science and technology in our lives. Prior underground robotics work by this team have generated considerable press and initiated acceptance of robotic technology in even the most change-adverse industries. The investigators will continue to push for robots through media appearances, lab and mine tours for school children and live demonstrations at science museums. This project will support education at all levels, which includes supporting postdoctoral and graduate research in robotics at CMU, employing undergraduate REU interns, and developing curriculum for the Mobile Robot Design course at CMU. Contributions from this research will impact automation in industries ranging from underground production to civic inspection, and defense.

在矿难等地下救援行动中，机器人是潜在的救生工具。房顶倒塌、爆炸危险、空气质量、烟雾和灰尘中的能见度、精神压力和身体耐力都阻碍了救援人员的行动。人类救援人员无法在短时间内覆盖足够的距离，往往会对事故受害者造成致命的后果。机器人可以在人类救援人员之前自动侦察并总结环境信息，这可以大大提高态势感知能力，使团队能够毫不拖延地推进。该提案设想了沉浸式机器人创建的3D模型，融合了许多传感器源，并通过烟雾，灰尘，泥浆，洪水和火灾创建。这些扩展模型为救援人员提供了不受环境条件影响的视觉清晰度。通过激光雷达、雷达、多光谱成像和主动照明RGB传感等全新模式的融合和智能视图规划，消除了照明伪影、传感器噪声和误差。虽然世界经常被引人注目的矿难所吸引，但机器人是有形的工具，其结果是可见的，有机会成为任何救援工作的核心。第一个被困矿工被发现和救援机器人拯救生命的破坏性影响将激励无数人认识到科学技术在我们生活中不断发展的作用。这个团队先前的地下机器人工作已经产生了相当大的压力，并开始接受机器人技术，即使是最不利于变化的行业。研究人员将继续推动机器人在媒体上的亮相，让学生参观实验室和矿井，并在科学博物馆进行现场演示。该项目将支持各级教育，包括支持CMU机器人技术的博士后和研究生研究，雇用本科REU实习生，以及为CMU移动机器人设计课程开发课程。这项研究的贡献将影响从地下生产到公民检查和国防等行业的自动化。