Abstract
Despite the fact that a large number of research studies have been conducted in the field of search and rescue robotics, significantly little attention has been given to the development of rescue robots capable of performing physical rescue interventions, including loading and transporting victims to a safe zone—i.e., casualty extraction tasks. The aim of this study is to develop a mobile rescue robot that could assist first responders when saving casualties from a dangerous area by performing a casualty extraction procedure whilst ensuring that no additional injury is caused by the operation and no additional lives are put at risk. In this paper, we present a novel design of ResQbot 2.0—a mobile rescue robot designed for performing the casualty extraction task. This robot is a stretcher-type casualty extraction robot, which is a significantly improved version of the initial proof-of-concept prototype, ResQbot (retrospectively referred to as ResQbot 1.0), that has been developed in our previous work. The proposed designs and development of the mechanical system of ResQbot 2.0, as well as the method for safely loading a full-body casualty onto the robot’s ‘stretcher bed’, are described in detail based on the conducted literature review, evaluation of our previous work, and feedback provided by medical professionals. We perform simulation experiments in the Gazebo physics engine simulator to verify the proposed design and the casualty extraction procedure. The simulation results demonstrate the capability of ResQbot 2.0 to carry out safe casualty extractions successfully.
Highlights
IntroductionExtracting casualties from a hazardous scene is such an example of an emergency case in which a significant amount of pressure and risk is placed on the people working as the first responders
This paper presents a novel design of a mobile rescue robot, called ResQbot 2.0, capable of safely rescuing a casualty lying on the ground
The remaining of this paper is organised as follows: In Section 2, we review the state of the art on the major work related to the existing mobile rescue robots designed for casualty extraction
Summary
Extracting casualties from a hazardous scene is such an example of an emergency case in which a significant amount of pressure and risk is placed on the people working as the first responders. Efficient and timely action is crucial since it is known that the mortality rate increases and reaches a peak after 48 h, implying that the chance of survival drops significantly after this period [1,2,3,4,5]. While it is crucial to act fast, ensuring the rescue operation is safely performed is critical. Apart from ensuring the safety of the first responders, minimising the possibility of creating further damage or additional risk to the casualties is a high priority [5]
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