CIVIC-PG Track A: Rapidly Deployable Robotic Inspection and Mapping of Complex Spaces

The objective of this research is to enable robotic inspection and mapping tasks in buildings, tunnels, and pipe networks, which are essential for achieving a sustainable building stock and associated infrastructure in municipalities. Currently, this work is performed manually, requiring invasive, dangerous, and expensive processes, which limit the implementation of sustainable pre-disaster adaptation measures.

Our proposed solution consists of an innovative co-design of a slender and deformable mobile robot in collaboration with the City of Worcester, MA. The co-designed robot will be able to navigate in narrow and intricate spaces, equipped with sensors to map both the structure and the thermal characteristics of its environment, which will help develop preventative measures.

The proposed robotic solution combines multiple features that have not been demonstrated before, such as the ability to navigate complex 3-D environments including vertical pipes by harnessing a small cross-sectional area, light weight, and low cost. Moreover, by developing a public interest technology framework, this project will align most recent developments in robotics research with Worcester's vision of sustainable infrastructure and community well-being.

These challenges are shared by municipalities across the US and this study aims to ensure that the developed solutions are broadly generalizable.

The spaces and environmental conditions that require monitoring and assessments are confined and extremely challenging for current mobile robots. Our solution is inspired by the versatile locomotion capabilities of lizards, which use body deformation to steer and navigate complex unstructured environments and extreme clutter. Our lizard robot decouples steering from propulsion and offers closed-loop force control of its traction inside pipes, which enables vertical travel, and it can navigate maze-like tight structures without getting stuck by deforming its body.

Using a modular body structure, multiple locomotion units can climb over larger steps or gaps. Proposed work will develop and test these unique capabilities in real-world inspection tasks in collaboration with our partners over three technical themes: 1) Physical Capabilities of the Robot, negotiating complex passageways, vertical climbs, and over gaps; 2) Intelligence Capabilities of the Robot, including 3D SLAM, active perception, and motion planning; 3) Intuitive User Interfacing, including superimposed visual, thermal, or other applicable sensory data streaming and user selectable modes of direct teleoperation or supervision.

In addition, the close collaboration with the City of Worcester in identifying critical locations for testing and providing input into the assessment requirements assures the approach will address real problems in the field.

This project is in response to the Civic Innovation Challenge program—Track A. Living in a changing climate: pre-disaster action around adaptation, resilience, and mitigation—and is a collaboration between NSF, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.