RoboCupRescue - Robot League Team SHINOBI, Japan

We will operate four robots by teleoperation at the competition: two track type, one snake type and one wheel type. Each type of the robots has its own unique control mechanism and possesses different advantages when traveling in various environments. Cooperation of these hetero-type multiple robots will give high task achievability in search and rescue missions. To improve the remote operation ability of mobile robots, we have developed an innovative remote control method that provides the operator a bird’s eye view of the robot and the environment. This helps the operator to easily recognize the robot situation even in unknown surroundings. For this reason, any operator can make full use of the robot’s mobility with this novel feature and requires only few effort and training to control the robot at a remote site. Interactive topological map generation with extracted useful information is also implemented. 1. Team Members and Their Contributions • Naoji Shiroma Team leader, operator • Tetsushi Kamegawa Mechanical design, system development, operator • Noritaka Sato System development, operator • Yu-huan Chiu System development, operator • Hideaki Nii System development • Masahiko Inami System development • Fumitoshi Matsuno Advisor • Hiroki Igarashi Mechanical design 2. Operator Station Set-up and Break-Down (10 minutes) We will operate four robots at the arenas (refer to Table 1). The MA1 & 2 along with its complete control system can be packaged in a portable suitcase for efficient transportation. A custom made metal container for the snake-type robot, KOHGA, has been specially developed for moving such long size robot. Other device setups like monitors, PCs and etc., are small in size thus can easily fit in any general size box. For this reason, small size robot can be carried around easily by its operator, though the long size snake-type robot like KOHGA needs 2 people for the set-up and breakdown.