Unmanned Vehicles, Sensors and Performance Testing for Near-Earth Missions

Keith W. Sevcik and Paul Y. Oh

Abstract

Disaster mitigation requires a diverse set of workers to respond quickly to dangerous situations. Robots performing tasks such as bomb detection, search-and- rescue and reconnaissance could be used to conserve resources and minimize risk to personnel. Such tasks require the cooperation of heterogeneous robotic teams. This paper surveys the design of aerial and ground based robots for disaster mitigation. An aerial robot platform and sensor suite design are presented. A robotic ATV with casualty extraction device is dis- cussed, and a platform for investigating aerial and ground robot teaming is introduced.

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Intelligent Systems & Robotics Laboratory

Department of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, Greece

The Intelligent Systems and Robotics Laboratory (IS&RL) was founded in November 2002 at the department of Production Engineering and Management of Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece. TUC's IS&RL is a place of intensive research and development in the areas of a) design and implementation of robotic vehicles, b) navigation and path planning solution based on so-called intelligent techniques and c) Automation of various production systems. Laboratory's objectives were stated by its founder and first director, Prof. Kimon P. Valavanis (now with the University of South Florida, Tampa, USA), and can be summarized in the following:

• To function as a research and development centre, capable of attracting research projects in collaboration with other institutes, governmental, educational, European or not, as also to exchange know-how with industries.

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