MINIATURE robots that can bounce up stairs and explore buildings have been
developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The
robots could be used in urban warfare or help police to foil hostage-takers in a
siege.
Nikos Papanikolopoulos and his colleagues have tested the ability of a series
of robotic 鈥渟couts鈥� to gather information. They envisage a group of scouts being
lobbed by a grenade launcher into a building that is too dangerous for police
officers, to explore and send back information via a radio link.
Each robot is roughly the size and shape of a roll of toilet paper, with a
diameter of 4 centimetres. It moves around by rolling and hopping and stays in
touch with other scouts by radio. 鈥淭he jumping mechanism, along with the
software that makes it jump, is the largest accomplishment,鈥� says
Papanikolopoulos. 鈥淗opping is done by a spring-loaded mechanism that winches in
a leg. Then, suddenly, it is released.鈥�
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The impact of the leg hitting the floor causes the robot to jump, 鈥渓ike
kicking a leg鈥�. It can also climb stairs and hurdle small barriers. Two
independent wheels at either end of the cylinder help the robot to roll into
position.
Each scout has a tiny sensor. One has a video camera that pops out of its
body, panning and tilting to capture images of the surrounding area. Other
scouts have small vibration sensors and microphones.
A number of scouts would be deployed at once and controlled from a mobile
鈥渉ome base鈥�. The 50-kilogram base is in turn operated remotely and acts as a
radio repeater, allowing a greater distance to be maintained between the scouts
and the people digesting the images. The researchers hope that the people will
be more than 400 metres away from the front line.
The concept of multiple robots working together is known as distributed
robotics, explains Paul Schenker, supervisor of the Mechanics and Robotics
Technology Group at NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, California.
鈥淎 number of groups are working on distributed robotics,鈥� he says. The idea is
that multiple robots can provide diverse information about what is going on
inside a building, for example by beaming back video pictures of an object from
different angles.
Papanikolopoulos鈥檚 research is being financed by the US military and is
scheduled to be finished by 2002. So far his team has successfully tested the
robot鈥檚 locomotion system and the video camera鈥檚 ability to pan and tilt.
The main application for the robots will be urban warfare or police rescue
operations. But they could also be useful for civilian intelligence-gathering.
鈥淐NN would love something like this,鈥� says Papanikolopoulos.