A Reconfigurable USAR Robot Designed for Traversing Complex 3D Terrain

The use of robotics in Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) is growing steadily from their initial inception during the 2001 World Trade Centre incident. These first USAR robots were adapted from robots intended for tasks such as duct inspection and bomb disposal and proved useful for exploring voids (spaces within the collapsed structure) deemed too dangerous or too small for either canine or human searching. Physically, the original designs consisted of a solid robot body with two tracks, one to each side, which utilized either fixed or variable geometries as per the specific robot. Despite years of progress, the core design of robots currently in use for USAR purposes has deviated little, favoring software/control development and optimization of the basic robot template to improve performance instead. [1] [2]