Mobile CDPR System for Robotic Sinkhole Exploration

Exploration of sinkholes is especially relevant due to its potential risk for search and rescue personnel in post-disaster areas. This topic is mostly addressed from a geotechnical and geophysical point of view. Recently, this line has been approached from robotics, presenting challenges for navigation, where the systems must be robust in hazardous environments, versatile, capable of navigating in complex terrain, and have a considerable continuous operation time. Given the physical characteristics of sinkholes, advances in this field are aimed at implementing heterogeneous multi-robot systems to overcome the shortcomings of individual robots. The present work proposes the development of a heterogeneous robotic system constituted of four mobile robots in charge of terrestrial deployment and a portable cable robot for internal exploration of the sinkhole, establishing a mission with three stages: navigation of the system as a roped fleet from the starting point to the surroundings of the sinkhole, deployment of the mobile robots as fixed nodes for the deployment of the explorer robot, and exploration of the sinkhole with the cable-driven robot.