Design and manufacturing of a tele‐operative rescue robot with a novel track arrangement

Purpose – The paper aims to describe the design and manufacturing process of a tele‐operative urban search and rescue tracked robot and discuss the advantages of a proposed novel track arrangement and other additional mechanisms, which help the robot to gain high manoeuverability on rough terrains. Design/methodology/approach – Using a simplified static model, required torques are calculated and appropriate mechanisms and geometric dimensions are chosen. Next, stress distribution is analyzed in the parts, deploying both classic and numerical methods and to complete the procedure parts are fabricated and assembled together. The architecture of control system and the user interface is introduced. Finally, the robot is tested on a standard test arena and the results are compared with another similar search robot. Findings – A tele‐operated rescue robot with considerable capabilities is designed and manufactured. The novel track arrangement and new rear arm's mechanism are tested and compared with a robot in the same class and higher performance is achieved on the evaluation. Originality/value – Although the implemented locomotion mechanism is the common tracked type, adding the center tracks and arrangement of arms are original ideas which help the robot to gain high manoeuverability. The proposed rear arm's linkage mechanism generates a limited rotational path and has an acceptable strength for a robot working in rescue missions.