Development of a Laser Range Finder for 3D Map-Building in Rubble; Installation in a Rescue Robot

In order to search and rescue the victims in rubble effectively, a 3D map of the rubble is required. As a part of the national project of rescue robot system, we are investigating a method for constructing a 3D map of rubble by teleoperated mobile robots. In previous work, we have developed the second prototype of laser range finder for rubble measurement. The prototype laser range finder consists of a ring laser beam module and two omni-vision cameras. Also, the third prototype, which is more compact than the second one, is newly developed. Our range finder has the features that the omni-directional distance around the range finder can be measured at once and the omnidirectional picture image can be captured at the same time. In this paper, the third prototype laser range finder is described, and an example installation of the range finder into a rescue robot is reported. Taking into consideration of mechanism stowing the range finder into the robot, we mount the third prototype on the snake-like rescue robot "Souryu-IV". Availability of the robot with the range finder is verified by results of experiments constructing 3-D maps of rubble using the robot.