Concept and development of general rescue robot CUL

Abstract

When a natural disaster happens, it is very important to go to the scene to rescue people as soon as possible. However, it is very hard to transport materials for rescue activities because the disasters destroy roads all over the area. Therefore, we cannot use automobiles. Moreover, the landform of the area is so complex. We propose a kind of walking robot system named CUL: Carry and Power Assist Robot for Unspecified Landforms. To develop the system, we also propose a method for creating an environmental map. We call the method the Mold Tube method. We describe a prototype of CUL that has two cameras and two legs. We show a result of an experiment for a feasibility study.