TY - JOUR
T1 - Wide Area Exploration System Using Passive-Follower Robots Towed by Multiple Winches
AU - Luces, Jose Victorio Salazar
AU - Hoshi, Manami
AU - Hirata, Yasuhisa
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received February 20, 2020; accepted July 19, 2020. Date of publication August 4, 2020; date of current version August 14, 2020. This letter was recommended for publication by Associate Editor N. Kottege and Editor J. Roberts upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments. This work was supported by JAXA’s Space Exploration Innovation Hub Center. (Corresponding author: Manami Hoshi.) The authors are with the Department of Robotics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan (e-mail: j.salazar@srd.mech.tohoku.ac.jp; m.hoshi@srd.mech.tohoku.ac.jp; hirata@srd.mech.tohoku.ac.jp).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
PY - 2020/10
Y1 - 2020/10
N2 - In this study, we propose a wide area exploration system that consists on passive wheeled robots equipped with exploration sensors that are pulled from a high position with wires fed out from two winches. The robots are driven by the pulling force from the winches and they are able to steer by controlling brakes attached to their wheels. By adjusting the wire length, the passive-follower robot is pulled within the exploration area and it controls the braking torque of the wheels to follow a desired trajectory based on its current position. This system has the advantage that it is effective for ground exploration, does not require advanced calibration, and can be installed quickly. In this letter, we first explain the outline of the proposed system. Then, we introduce the hardware design of the developed winches and passive-follower robot. Next, the control method of the winch unit and the passive-follower robots are described. Here, we introduce the feasible braking control region for motion analysis and control of the passive-follower robot. Finally, we apply these control methods to the proposed system and report the results of verification experiments. We describe the feasible range of a follower robot, which changes depending on the position of the winches. We conducted an outdoor experiment, and confirmed the effectiveness of this system by evaluating the trajectories of the passive-follower robot.
AB - In this study, we propose a wide area exploration system that consists on passive wheeled robots equipped with exploration sensors that are pulled from a high position with wires fed out from two winches. The robots are driven by the pulling force from the winches and they are able to steer by controlling brakes attached to their wheels. By adjusting the wire length, the passive-follower robot is pulled within the exploration area and it controls the braking torque of the wheels to follow a desired trajectory based on its current position. This system has the advantage that it is effective for ground exploration, does not require advanced calibration, and can be installed quickly. In this letter, we first explain the outline of the proposed system. Then, we introduce the hardware design of the developed winches and passive-follower robot. Next, the control method of the winch unit and the passive-follower robots are described. Here, we introduce the feasible braking control region for motion analysis and control of the passive-follower robot. Finally, we apply these control methods to the proposed system and report the results of verification experiments. We describe the feasible range of a follower robot, which changes depending on the position of the winches. We conducted an outdoor experiment, and confirmed the effectiveness of this system by evaluating the trajectories of the passive-follower robot.
KW - Field robots
KW - motion control
KW - multi-robot systems
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U2 - 10.1109/LRA.2020.3013859
DO - 10.1109/LRA.2020.3013859
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85089305384
VL - 5
SP - 6459
EP - 6466
JO - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
JF - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
SN - 2377-3766
IS - 4
M1 - 9158396
ER -