A scanning robotic system for humanitarian de‐mining activities

Abstract

Purpose

Humanitarian de‐mining tasks require the use of specific detecting sets to detect landmines. These sets are normally based on a one‐point sensor, which must be moved over the infested terrain by a combination of a scanning manipulator and a mobile platform. The purpose of this paper is to present the development of the sensor head and the scanning manipulator.

Design/methodology/approach

The manipulator needs sensors in order to negotiate ground irregularities and detect obstacles in the path of the mine‐detecting set. All of the sensors must be integrated into a sensor head that is in charge of both detecting land mines and providing overall sensor functions for the mobile platform's steering controller.

Findings

The sensor head is based on a commercial mine‐detecting set and a ground‐tracking set based on a network of range sensors tailor‐made for this purpose; the scanning manipulator is based on a mechanism with five degrees of freedom.

Originality/value

The design assessment and some experiments are reported.

Citation

Ponticelli, R., Garcia, E., Gonzalez de Santos, P. and Armada, M. (2008), "A scanning robotic system for humanitarian de‐mining activities", Industrial Robot, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 133-142. https://doi.org/10.1108/01439910810854629