Integration of Arm-equipped Mobile Robot GRYPHON for Humanitarian Demining Operation

Our project to develop arm-equipped mobile robot GRYPHON for humanitarian demining operation will be introduced. The mobile base of the GRYPHON is the off-the-self buggy vehicle and it is modified to be tele-operated by wireless control system. The GRYPHON is mounted specially designed robot arm of about 4m long with counterweight at the rear side of the arm. The arm is equipped with 2 dof wrist mechanism and mine detector including metal, GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar), and NQR (Nuclear Quadropole Resonance) sensors. The GRYPHON can be manually driven from the base camp to the mine field and it is changed to the tele-operated mode at the site. It is then accessed to the border of the mine field and measures the surface of the ground by stereo-vision to generate the scanning trajectory for the arm. Execution of the scanning is then done to generate signal map of the terrain. The deminer judge the generated signal map and marks some of the suspicious points on the CRT screen of the control box located far away from the GRYPHON. The GRYPHON then automatically marks the locations of the ground by paint or paddles to show the places for the final prodding operation. The dynamo of the buggy vehicle is designed to provide all the electric power required for this operation in full day.