2P1-E19 Development of Souryu-VII with active slime body and multiple wheels

Abstract

Recently, a requirement has emerged for vehicles which aim to search for victims who are trapped under the rubble when an earthquake occurs, or to carry out inspections for maintenance activities under house floors and roofs. To meet these requirements, we propose a multi-wheeled snake like robot with actively movable slime body, which is called "Souryu VII". The body of the robot comprises a series of alternate rigid segments and flexible rubber sponge joints, and bending movement of the body is generated by pulling three wires that go through the body. Eight wheels are attached on alternating sides of each rigid segment. The shape of each wheel is long in the axial direction with a cone-like step, and this feature makes it possible to generate propulsion on a large area of the bottom surface. Finally, the advantageous architecture we proposed was validated with experiments in which Souryu VII overcame various obstacles.