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

全球社会正在越来越多地探索地下环境，以寻求可持续和有弹性的社会问题解决方案。在取水、水质和储存、地热能和碳固存方面的新机遇和挑战共同指向地下环境是下一个前沿。然而，地下环境对人类来说是出了名的危险；因此，检查地下环境并在地下灾难期间进行救援对于实现这一新的地下前沿是必不可少的。拟议的基础设施将支持人-机器人合作、联网、规划和人-机器人互动的研究，以及与其他领域的其他研究人员的合作研究，以及以应用为导向的地下信息收集、监测、测量、救援和危机管理研究。拟议的基础设施还将用于社区外展计划，通过研讨会、演示以及与K-12地区课后计划的合作。拟议的基础设施将提供一个部署在地下环境中的异类机器人团队，以及传感器、网络设备和增强现实耳机，以促进它们的有效使用。这一基础设施将支持地下环境研究的机构主题，包括地下检查和搜救应用。这些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抓手；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。这些硬件元素将被整合在一起，并部署在埃德加煤矿内，这是一个由科罗拉多矿产学院拥有和运营的地下研究和评估设施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.