Obviously rescue robots should be light enough to be carried by rescue personnel to the disaster zones. US Center for Robot Assisted Search And Rescue (CRASAR) emphasizes on the usage of man-packable and more specifically “shoe box size” robots in Urban Search And Rescue (USAR) missions.
However the existing rules of RoboCup Rescue Robot League (RC RRL) do not encourage participants to develop small size and light weight robots. If you take a close look at the participating teams of RC RLL, you will hardly find man-packable robots. In my opinion, this is only due to the lack of “reward/penalty” mechanism for such a crucial parameter.
Certainly the size and weight of a robot can only be decreased at a cost of decreasing its electromechanical capabilities (i.e. mobility, manipulation and victim detection) or increasing its final price but why we should pay this high price?! Unfortunately I haven’t found the answer in the RC RRL rules yet; even worse, heavier robots sometimes have potentially better performance in RC RRL (note that the robots of iRap-Pro – the first place award winning team of RC09 and RC10 – are definitely heavier than 30 Kg.).
If we accept that the performance of a mobile robot is proportional to its weight, it cannot be right to evaluate a 30 Kg robot with an over 50 Kg. one. Considering the very tight schedule of RoboCup competitions, it won’t be possible to have several weight-class based (e.g. light weight, heavy weight etc.) evaluations. On the other hand having weight-classified evaluations may not encourage participating teams to work on reducing the weight of their robots.
My suggestion is to utilize “dynamic elements” in the arena so that the difficulty of traversing them changes based on the passing weight. An example of such an element is shown in the top of this post. This element is just like a simple 45 deg slope but it is connected to the elevated floor using a pair of sprung joints instead of hinges. Now, the distance between top end of this ramp and the elevated floor will change based on the amount of mass on it. As it’s shown in the picture, the robot with mass “M” will face a gap with length “D” which is larger than the distance “d” caused by the robot with mass “m”. This means that a robot should have greater mobility if it is heavier!
However the existing rules of RoboCup Rescue Robot League (RC RRL) do not encourage participants to develop small size and light weight robots. If you take a close look at the participating teams of RC RLL, you will hardly find man-packable robots. In my opinion, this is only due to the lack of “reward/penalty” mechanism for such a crucial parameter.
Certainly the size and weight of a robot can only be decreased at a cost of decreasing its electromechanical capabilities (i.e. mobility, manipulation and victim detection) or increasing its final price but why we should pay this high price?! Unfortunately I haven’t found the answer in the RC RRL rules yet; even worse, heavier robots sometimes have potentially better performance in RC RRL (note that the robots of iRap-Pro – the first place award winning team of RC09 and RC10 – are definitely heavier than 30 Kg.).
If we accept that the performance of a mobile robot is proportional to its weight, it cannot be right to evaluate a 30 Kg robot with an over 50 Kg. one. Considering the very tight schedule of RoboCup competitions, it won’t be possible to have several weight-class based (e.g. light weight, heavy weight etc.) evaluations. On the other hand having weight-classified evaluations may not encourage participating teams to work on reducing the weight of their robots.
My suggestion is to utilize “dynamic elements” in the arena so that the difficulty of traversing them changes based on the passing weight. An example of such an element is shown in the top of this post. This element is just like a simple 45 deg slope but it is connected to the elevated floor using a pair of sprung joints instead of hinges. Now, the distance between top end of this ramp and the elevated floor will change based on the amount of mass on it. As it’s shown in the picture, the robot with mass “M” will face a gap with length “D” which is larger than the distance “d” caused by the robot with mass “m”. This means that a robot should have greater mobility if it is heavier!
