Toward the Sense of Touch in Snake Modular

Robots for Search and Rescue Operations

Juan González-Gómez, Javier Gonzalez-Quijano,

Houxiang Zhang, Mohamed Abderrahim

Robotics Lab TAMS group

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid University of Hamburg
Madrid (Spain) Hamburg (Germany)

Dr. Juan González-Gómez. Workshop on Modular Robots. ICRA. May-3th-2010

Outline

Outline

1. Introduction
2. Sense of touch
3. Mechanics
4. Experiments
5. Conclusions

A New Application of Modular Robot on Analysis of Caterpillar-like Locomotion 2

1.- Introduction

Urban Search and Rescue Operations (I)

● Environment:
● Unstructured terrain
● Chaotic
● Pieces of rumble
● Priority: to find survivals quickly
● Robot properties:
● Versatility
● Flexibility
● Adaptability

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 3
1.- Introduction

Urban Search and Rescue Operations (II)

●Snakes modular robots are very

good candidates for search and
rescue operations
● Small section
● Flexible body
● Modular
● Robustness
● Versatile
● Low cost

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 4
1.- Introduction

Urban Search and Rescue Operations (III)

●Capabilities needed (at least): Locomotion, climbing and

grasping

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 5
2.- Sense of touch

Touch rings

● Discrete touch rings vs continuous artificial skin

● Easier to adapt to the different snake prototypes
● Distance d can be changed according to the requirements

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 6
 2.- Sense of touch

Touch strips

● Flexible capacitive strip

● Consist of three layers
●Electrodes in a flexible
PCB layer
● The strip is bended to
form a touch ring
● It fits snake robots with
different cross section
(circular, squared...)

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 7
3.- Mechanics

Modules

● Y1 modules family
● Cube-M family
● Joined together by screws

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 8
3.- Mechanics

Modular snakes prototypes

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 9
4.- Experiments

Touch strip experiments (I)

● Very early experiments ● Only the first touch strip layer

●Pith-pitch minimum modular ● Only three electrodes
robot

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 10
4.- Experiments

Touch strip experiments (II)

● First tests carried out with Freescale standard electrodes

● Substituted by our touch strip
● Freescale software is used to display the measures

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 11
4.- Experiments

Modular grasping simulation

●Grasping of a cylinder using the OpenRave Modular robot Plug-in

(developed by ourselves)

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 12
6.- Conclusions

Conclusions

●Modular Snake robots are good candidates for being used in USAR
Operations
● At least, locomotion, climbing and grasping capabilities are needed
● The sense of touch is key to achieving these capabilities
● Our idea is to use touch rings and touch strips
● The early experiments are promising....

...But still a lot of research have to be done

Toward the sense of touch in Snake modular robots for search and rescue operations 13
Towards the Sense of Touch in Snake Modular
Robots for Search and Rescue Operations

Juan González-Gómez, Javier Gonzalez-Quijano,

Houxiang Zhang, Mohamed Abderrahim

Robotics Lab TAMS group

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid University of Hamburg
Madrid (Spain) Hamburg (Germany)

Dr. Juan González-Gómez. Workshop on Modular Robots. ICRA. May-3th-2010