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Athena: An Autonomous Open-Hardware Tracked Rescue Robot Platform

Stefan Fabian, Aljoscha Schmidt, Jonas Süß, Dishant, Aum Oza, Oskar von Stryk

Abstract

In disaster response and situation assessment, robots have great potential in reducing the risks to the safety and health of first responders. As the situations encountered and the required capabilities of the robots deployed in such missions differ wildly and are often not known in advance, heterogeneous fleets of robots are needed to cover a wide range of mission requirements. While UAVs can quickly survey the mission environment, their ability to carry heavy payloads such as sensors and manipulators is limited. UGVs can carry required payloads to assess and manipulate the mission environment, but need to be able to deal with difficult and unstructured terrain such as rubble and stairs. The ability of tracked platforms with articulated arms (flippers) to reconfigure their geometry makes them particularly effective for navigating challenging terrain. In this paper, we present Athena, an open-hardware rescue ground robot research platform with four individually reconfigurable flippers and a reliable low-cost remote emergency stop (E-Stop) solution. A novel mounting solution using an industrial PU belt and tooth inserts allows the replacement and testing of different track profiles. The manipulator with a maximum reach of 1.54m can be used to operate doors, valves, and other objects of interest. Full CAD & PCB files, as well as all low-level software, are released as open-source contributions.

Athena: An Autonomous Open-Hardware Tracked Rescue Robot Platform

Abstract

In disaster response and situation assessment, robots have great potential in reducing the risks to the safety and health of first responders. As the situations encountered and the required capabilities of the robots deployed in such missions differ wildly and are often not known in advance, heterogeneous fleets of robots are needed to cover a wide range of mission requirements. While UAVs can quickly survey the mission environment, their ability to carry heavy payloads such as sensors and manipulators is limited. UGVs can carry required payloads to assess and manipulate the mission environment, but need to be able to deal with difficult and unstructured terrain such as rubble and stairs. The ability of tracked platforms with articulated arms (flippers) to reconfigure their geometry makes them particularly effective for navigating challenging terrain. In this paper, we present Athena, an open-hardware rescue ground robot research platform with four individually reconfigurable flippers and a reliable low-cost remote emergency stop (E-Stop) solution. A novel mounting solution using an industrial PU belt and tooth inserts allows the replacement and testing of different track profiles. The manipulator with a maximum reach of 1.54m can be used to operate doors, valves, and other objects of interest. Full CAD & PCB files, as well as all low-level software, are released as open-source contributions.
Paper Structure (13 sections, 5 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 13 sections, 5 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. RELATED WORK
  3. LOCOMOTION
  4. Manipulator
  5. Electronics
  6. Sensors
  7. Compute & Connectivity
  8. Power Distribution
  9. Remote E-Stop
  10. EVALUATION
  11. Athena
  12. Remote E-Stop
  13. CONCLUSION

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Athena, a highly mobile tracked rescue robot with four individually movable flippers and a large manipulator arm.
  • Figure 2: (Left) Cross-section of the motor, shaft, and pulleys driving the belt. (Right) Profile mounting on the belt using steel tooth inserts with threads.
  • Figure 3: Overview of the manipulator, highlighting the kinematic chain and the integration of continuous-rotation slip rings within each roll joint. Actuator types are indicated along the chain.
  • Figure 4: Athena's environment perception module with a Livox MID-360 LiDAR, an Orbbec Astra Stereo S U3 RGBD camera, and a 240° wide-angle camera. One module is mounted at each end of the robot.
  • Figure 5: Evaluation scenarios for the maximum step height, application on stairs and the maximum payload of the manipulator.