CRI: II-New: Infrastructure for Robust Interactive Underground Robots

全球社会越来越多地探索地下环境，以寻求解决社会问题的可持续和有弹性的解决方案。在水的获取、质量和储存、地热能和碳固存方面的新机遇和挑战共同指向地下环境作为下一个前沿。然而，众所周知，地下环境对人类是危险的;因此，在地下灾难期间检查地下环境并执行救援对于实现这一新的地下前沿至关重要。拟议的基础设施将支持人机协作、网络、规划和人机交互方面的研究，以及与其他领域的其他研究人员的合作研究，以及地下信息收集、监测、调查、救援和危机管理方面的应用驱动研究。拟议的基础设施还将用于社区外展计划，通过研讨会，演示和与K-12地区课后计划的合作伙伴关系。拟议的基础设施将提供一组异构机器人，用于在地下环境中部署，以及传感器，网络设备和增强现实耳机，以促进其有效使用。这一基础设施将支持研究地下环境的机构主题，包括地下检查和搜索及救援应用。该基础设施将包括两栖、地面和空中机器人;安装在地面机器人上的机械臂和夹具;为安全关键领域设计的增强现实耳机;视觉、距离和音频传感器;以及网络设备。这些硬件元素将被集成在一起，并部署在埃德加矿山，一个地下研究和评估设施拥有和经营的科罗拉多矿业学校。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得的支持，通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The global community is increasingly exploring underground environments for sustainable and resilient solutions to societal problems. New opportunities and challenges in water access, quality, and storage, geothermal energy, and carbon sequestration collectively point to underground environments as the next frontier. Underground environments are, however, notoriously hazardous for humans; accordingly, inspecting underground environments and performing rescues during underground catastrophes is essential to achieve this new underground frontier. The proposed infrastructure will support research in human-robot teaming, networking, planning, and human-robot interaction, as well as collaborative research with other researchers in other fields and application-driven research into underground information collection, monitoring, surveying, rescue, and crisis management. The proposed infrastructure will also be used for community outreach programs, through workshops, presentations, and partnerships with area K-12 after-school programs.The proposed infrastructure will provide a team of heterogeneous robots for deployment in underground environments, as well as sensors, networking equipment, and augmented reality headsets to facilitate their effective use. This infrastructure will support the institutional theme of research on underground environments, including underground inspection and search and rescue applications. This infrastructure will include amphibious, ground, and aerial robots; robotic arms and grippers to be mounted on ground robots; augmented reality headsets designed for safety-critical domains; visual, range, and audio sensors; and networking equipment. These hardware elements will be integrated together and deployed within the Edgar Mine, an underground research and evaluation facility owned and operated by the Colorado School of Mines.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.