Flexible Mono-tread Mobile Track (FMT) - A New Mobile Mechanism Using One Track and Vertebral Structure -

Abstract

In the past decade, search type rescue robots have been focused on. Most robots took “linked mobile track” type such as snakes, so as to obtain high quality against unknown irregular surfaces. However the linked mobile track has some joints and sometimes they shut in some debris and stuck on it. In addition, many links increase total weight of robots and control complexity. In the paper, we propose a new type mobile mechanism, Flexible Mono-Tread Mobile Track (FMT) and develop a prototype called “Rescue mobile Track No.2 (RT02) WORMY”. The prototype consists of a flexible chain and a vertebrae like structure. Moreover, we investigate its performance against the irregular surfaces.