On the Design of Rapidly Deployable Field Robotic Systems

Abstract

Abstract Long development times and high costs limit the practical use of robots for many important field missions. Here the underlying hypotheses of a modular design approach to producing rapidly deployable, low cost field robotic systems are presented and their validity explored. An inventory of physical modules and software modules are assembled into a field robotic system for a specified task. The proposed design method uses a hierarchical selection process combined with a genetic algorithm to select a robot configuration and action plan for a given task. The method is applied to an inspection task required for the preservation of an historic ship.