Development of “Souryu‐IV” and “Souryu‐V:” Serially connected crawler vehicles for in‐rubble searching operations

Abstract The authors have developed Souryu‐I, Souryu‐II and Souryu‐III, connected crawler vehicles that can travel in rubble. These machines were developed for the purpose of finding survivors trapped inside collapsed buildings. However, when conducting experiments in post‐disaster environments with Souryu‐III, mechanical and control limitations have been identified. This led the authors to develop novel crawler units using crawler tracks strengthened with metal, and develop two improved models, called Souryu‐IV (composed of three double‐sided crawler bodies, a joint driving unit, a blade‐spring joint mechanism, and cameras) and Souryu‐V (composed of mono‐tread‐crawler bodies, elastic‐rod‐joint mechanisms, and cameras). The authors then conducted basic motion experiments and teleoperated control experiments on off‐road fields with Souryu‐IV and Souryu‐V. Their high performance in experiments of urban rescue operations was confirmed. However, several problems were identified during the driving experiments, and are reported in this paper, as well as a few possible solutions to solve them. This paper describes Souryu‐IV and Souryu‐V, their mechanisms, their cameras, and the experiments to test their mobile performance. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.