Third generation security robot
ROBART III is the third generation security robots with addition of threat-response capability to the detection and assessment features, which has drawn tremendous military interest in Law Enforcement and Operations Other Than War. There are three subsystems employed on ROBART III according to their purpose and functionalities: (1) mobility and navigation; (2) threat detection and assessment; (3) non-lethal response; and (4) high level control. Each of these will be briefly discussed below.
1. Mobility And Navigation
ROBART III is designed only for indoor operation on relatively smooth planar floor surfaces. Differential steering is employed with a single passive caster in the rear of the platform directly behind the battery compartment. The left and right drive wheels are 8-inch wheelchair snow tires (see Figure 1) driven by a pair of 12-volt motors.
2 Threat Detection And Assessment
The initial detection is accomplished by a 360-degree staring array of eight passive-infrared (PIR) motion detectors arranged as a collar ring just below the head. The head could detect any alarm zone and a black-and-white video surveillance camera would survey the scene. Subsequent motion is detected with a reconfigurable video line digitizer. There are additional head-mounted security sensors support the intelligent security assessment algorithm in rejecting nuisance alarms
3 Non-Lethal Response
The non-lethal-response weapon chosen for incorporation on ROBART III consists of a pneumatically powered dart gun capable of firing a variety of 3/16-inch diameter projectiles, including tranquilizing darts. A rotating-barrel arrangement (Figure 2) is incorporated to allow for multiple firings (six) with minimal mechanical complexity.
4 High Level Control
The seven low-level microprocessor-based controllers installed on ROBART III will be interfaced via a high-speed multi-drop RS-232 interface as slaves to a master 68HC11 controller.
In summary, ROBART III incorporates a non-lethal response capability into a body of robotic mobility, navigation, and threat detection and assessment techniques. The system will be able to confront intruders with a laser-sighted six-barrel tranquilizer dart gun, remotely controlled by a human operator. The system simplifies the operator's difficult coordination task of simultaneously controlling vehicle movement and attitude, pointing the camera, and aiming and firing the weapon. This will be accomplished by onboard intelligence which uses the inputs of various sensors including video motion detection to detect intruders, filter out false alarms, and automatically track a moving target.
U037130N, Li Chao
Reference: http://www.nosc.mil/robots/land/robart/spie96.html
