A Holistic Approach for Highly Versatile Supervised Autonomous Urban Search and Rescue Robots Vom Fachbereich Informatik der Technischen Universität Darmstadt zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktor-Ingenieurs (Dr.-Ing.) genehmigte Dissertation von Dipl.-Inform. Stefan Kohlbrecher (geboren in Hannover) Referent: Prof. Dr. Oskar von Stryk Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Daniele Nardi (Sapienza Università di Roma, Italien) Tag der Einreichung: 20.10.2015 Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 02.12.2015 D17 Darmstadt 2016 Please cite this document as URN: urn:nbn:de:tuda-tuprints-58162 URL: http://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/5816 This document is provided by tuprints, E-Publishing-Service of the TU Darmstadt http://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de [email protected] Contents Abstract 1 Kurzdarstellung 3 1 Introduction 5 1.1 Motivation . 5 1.2 Outline of this Work . 8 2 Background 11 2.1 Robots for Disaster Response . 11 2.1.1 State of the Art . 11 2.1.2 Unmanned Ground Vehicle Platforms . 13 2.1.3 Constrained Communication . 13 2.1.4 Real Disaster Response Examples . 14 2.2 Benchmarking . 15 2.2.1 NIST Standard Test Methods for Response Robots . 15 2.2.2 RoboCup Rescue . 16 2.2.3 DARPA Robotics Challenge . 17 2.2.4 euRathlon . 18 3 Robots Used in this Thesis 19 3.1 Hector Unmanned Ground Vehicles . 19 3.2 Atlas . 22 3.3 THOR-MANG . 23 3.4 Hector Centaur . 24 4 System Architecture 27 4.1 Requirements for a Holistic Approach . 27 4.2 Related Work . 29 4.2.1 Flexible Level of Interaction . 30 4.2.2 Heterogeneous Robot Types . 30 4.2.3 System Architecture . 31 4.3 Design of System Architecture . 32 5 Simulation of Robots and Scenarios for Development and Testing 35 5.1 Related Work . 35 5.2 USAR Scenario Simulation . 36 5.3 Thermal Imaging . 36 5.4 Tracked Vehicles . 38 5.5 Quadrotor Simulation . 38 5.6 Other Applications . 38 i 6 Simultaneous Localization and Mapping 41 6.1 Related Work . 41 6.2 Contribution . 42 6.3 Human-Robot Interaction and Supervision Aspects . 42 6.4 Approach . 42 6.4.1 Map Access . 43 6.4.2 Scan Matching . 44 6.4.3 Multi-Resolution Map Representation . 46 6.5 Experimental Evaluation . 47 6.5.1 RoboCup Rescue . 47 6.5.2 Handheld Mapping System . 47 6.5.3 Third Party Evaluation . 48 6.6 Applications . 49 6.6.1 Fast Radio Map Building . 49 6.6.2 Littoral Mapping . 50 6.6.3 Use with Low-Cost LIDAR Sensors . 51 6.6.4 Large Scale Mapping . 51 6.6.5 Use on UAVs . 52 7 Navigation, Exploration, and Search for Victims 55 7.1 Related Work . 55 7.2 Contribution . 56 7.3 Human-Robot Interaction and Supervision Aspects . 56 7.4 Overview . 57 7.5 Exploration of Unknown Environments . 58 7.5.1 Exploration Transform . 58 7.5.2 Inner Exploration . 59 7.5.3 Recovery of Stuck Mobile Robots . 59 7.6 Improved Search for Victims . 61 7.6.1 Victim Exploration . 61 7.6.2 Robust Navigation towards Goal Poses . 62 7.6.3 Victim Verification . 64 7.7 Path Following Control . 66 7.7.1 Common Base Controller . 66 7.7.2 Ackermann-Steered Vehicles . 67 7.7.3 Tracked Vehicles . 67 7.8 Map Merging . 67 7.9 Experimental Evaluation . 68 7.9.1 Victim Search and Exploration . 69 7.9.2 Map Merging . 71 8 Manipulation for Complex Disaster Recovery Tasks 75 8.1 Related Work . 75 8.2 Contribution . 76 8.3 Human-Robot Interaction and Supervision Aspects . 76 ii Contents 8.4 World Modeling . 77 8.4.1 Sensors . 77 8.4.2 World Model Server . 78 8.4.3 LIDAR Data Compression . 79 8.4.4 Sensor Data Processing for Situation Awareness . 82 8.5 Manipulation . 84 8.5.1 Kinematic Calibration . 85 8.5.2 Previewing Manipulation . 86 8.5.3 Planning System Details . 89 8.5.4 Planning Interface . 90 8.5.5 Supervised and Autonomous Control . 91 8.5.6 Whole Body Planning . 92 8.6 Experimental Evaluation . 92 9 Experimental Evaluation 93 9.1 Component-Focussed Experiments . 93 9.2 Aspects of System-Oriented Evaluation and Benchmarking . 93 9.3 DARPA Robotics Challenge . 94 9.3.1 VRC . 94 9.3.2 DRC Trials . 96 9.3.3 DRC Finals . 99 9.4 RoboCup Rescue . 103 9.5 Simulated Case Study Combining Exploration and Manipulation . ..