Sustainable robots for humanitarian demining

Abstract

This paper proposes a roadmap for the application of advanced technology (in particular robotics) for the humanitarian demining domain. Based on this roadmap, a portable demining kit to handle urgent situations in remote locations is described. A low-cost four-wheel steering robot with a biologically inspired locomotion control is the base of the kit. On going research on a method for all-terrain piloting, under the morphological computation paradigm is also introduced, along with the behavioural architecture underlying it, the Survival Kit. A multi-agent architecture, the DSAAR architecture, is also proposed as a way of promoting short time-to-market and soft integration of different robots in a given mission. A common denominator for all developments is the quest for sustainability with respect to (re-)engineering and maintainability effort, as well as economical and ecological impact. Failing to cope with these requirements greatly reduces the applicability of a given technology to the humanitarian demining domain. Finally it is concluded that biologically inspired design fits considerably well to support a sustainable demining paradigm.