Development of an experimental multi-robot CBRNE reconnaissance demonstrator: System description and technical validation

Abstract

This paper presents a prototype of a multi-robot reconnaissance system for detection of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) threats. Our system consists of different robot platforms which are able to carry highly modularized payload platforms: either a multi-purpose CBRNE sensor suite or a mobile manipulator for semi-autonomous sample collection. A variety of sensors is available for detection and identification of chemical and radiological hazards as well as for collecting potentially dangerous airborne biological particles. A manipulator can be used to gather chemical and biological samples directly from surfaces in the environment. A detailed description illustrates the robot platforms, the CBRNE sensor suite and relevant parts of the user interface. For a technical validation preliminary real world experiments are presented. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.