Robots can facilitate rescue operations by entering spaces that are dangerous or inaccessible. These robots usually make use of a camera to confer visibility to users. It is advantageous to also map the environment through the use of LIDAR sensors. This provides a geometric model which can be used in real time or throughout a mission. Example scenarios include:
- Searching for imperilled individuals in a burning building
- Searching for buried individuals in rubble
- Searching for hostages and suspects in a law enforcement situation
A simple wheel based solution has been used for movement. Combining the lidar mapping concept with more sophisticated movement to overcome difficult terrain would yield a more practical robot, but is outside the scope of this project.
- Acquisition of 3D mapping of the environment using Lidar and SLAM
- Rendering of the environment in VR
- Remote control of the robot in VR
- OS: Ubuntu MATE (16.04) was built on RPi3
- ROS distribution: ROS Kinetic
- Unity
- Microcontrollers and Microprocessors
- Raspberry Pi 3 and Intel Joule 570X
- OpenCR microcontroller
- Sensors and Actuators
- Lidar sensor (360 Laser Distance Sensor LDS-01)
- Raspicam 2 and Intel real sense camera (R200)
- Remote controller and bluetooth (RC-100B)
- Motors - Dynamixel (XM430-W210-T)
- VR Headset
- Oculus Rift S
