Today, terrestrial robots are used in a multitude of fields and for performing multiple missions. This paper introduces the novel development of a family of crawling terrestrial robots capable of changing very quickly depending on the missions they h...
The decline in the number of essential farmers has become a significant issue in Japanese agriculture. In response, there is increasing interest in the electrification and automation of agricultural machinery, particularly in relation to the United N...
There is an obvious tendency towards increasing the information content of surveys of hard-to-reach objects at high altitudes through the use of remote-controlled robot crawlers. This can be explained by the reasonable desire of industrial objects ow...
To address the issues of low trajectory tracking accuracy and difficulties in tuning control parameters for crawler robots operating in uneven terrains, this paper proposes a trajectory tracking control method. The method is based on improved particl...
Based on the large-scale wall-pressing three-legged crawler pipeline inspection robot, our team proposed a cornering algorithm based on space constraints, that aims to better control the smooth operation of the pipeline robot in the pipeline. This al...
Dams and the water systems they support must be monitored, maintained, and repaired when necessary so they can continue to provide benefits to the communities they serve. This study presents the methods and results from a robotic crawler-based ground...
In the complex operational environment of coal mine shafts, trajectory tracking control of crawler hydraulic drill-anchor robots is susceptible to track slippage and internal–external uncertain disturbances, leading to low tracking accuracy. Th...
In Japan, the decline in the number of agricultural workers and the aging of the workforce are problems, and there is a demand for more efficient and labor-saving work. Furthermore, in order to correct the rising price of fertilizer and the increasin...
Large oil and gas pipelines are prone to corrosion and leakage, so in-pipe inspection is necessary. In this article, we show a novel robot mechanism for long-distance pipeline inspection. The robot consists of three crawlers and electric putters, whi...
The agricultural sector is currently facing problems including a decline in the agricultural population, labor shortages, and an aging population. To solve these problems and increase agricultural productivity, the development and distribution of aut...
Micro-hexapods, well-suited for navigating tight or uneven spaces and suitable for mass production, hold promise for exploration by robot groups, particularly in disaster scenarios. However, research on simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) fo...
The current regulatory landscape that applies to maritime service robotics, aptly termed as robotics and autonomous systems (RAS), is quite complex. When it comes to patents, there are multifarious considerations in relation to vessel survey, inspect...
Increasing developments in the offshore energy sector have led to demand for robotics use in inspection, maintenance, and repair maintenance tasks, particularly for the service life extension of structures. These robots experience slippage due to var...
This study tackles the task of swarm robotics, where robots explore the environment to detect targets. When a robot detects a target, the robot must be connected with a base station via intermediate relay robots for wireless communication. Our previo...
Incidents to pipes cause damage in water distribution systems (WDS) and access to all parts of the WDS is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose an integrated wireless robotic system for in-pipe missions that includes an agile, maneuverable, a...
Terrestrial robots are being employed in a variety of sectors and for a variety of objectives. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and validate an analytical–numerical model of a robotic arm’s behavior. The proposed robot was designed...
In contemporary times, the use of walking robots is gaining increasing popularity and is prevalent in various industries. The ability to navigate challenging terrains is one of the advantages that they have over other types of robots, but they also r...
Inspections of industrial and civil infrastructures are necessary to prevent damages and loss of human life. Although robotic inspection is gaining momentum, most of the operations are still performed by human workers. The main limiting factors of in...
Aiming to address the problems of fewer related studies on autonomous navigation algorithms based on multi-sensor fusion in complex scenarios in pastures, lower degrees of fusion, and insufficient cruising accuracy of the operation path in complex ou...
Various marine engineering facilities have been eroded by marine organisms and wind waves for a long time, resulting in different types of damage to the surface of marine engineering facilities, such as the pile legs of offshore platforms. Therefore,...
The paper discusses the state-of-the-art of locomotion systems for ground mobile robots comprising tracks. Tracked locomotion, due to the large contact surface with the ground, is particularly suitable for tackling soft, yielding, and irregular terra...
The demand for renewable energy sources is growing fast because of the negative impact of the utilization of fossil energy, nuclear energy, and hydroelectricity. One of the renewable energy sources, known as solar energy, which uses the photovoltaic...
In this work we present a soft crawler fabricated using a magneto-active elastomer. The crawler is controlled by an external magnetic field to produce two locomotion patterns: peristaltic and caterpillar crawling. Due to its structural simplicity, lo...
The use of marine cabled video observatories with multiparametric environmental data collection capability is becoming relevant for ecological monitoring strategies. Their ecosystem surveying can be enforced in real time, remotely, and continuously,...
To improve the unstructured terrain traversing performance of the scientific research robot of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau station, the parameters of the track shoe of the reconfigurable wheel-crawler walking mechanism were studied. Based on a ty...
Web crawlers are widely used to automatically explore and test web applications. However, navigating the pages of a web application can be difficult due to dynamic page generation. In particular, the inputs for the web form fields can affect the resu...
Although extensive research has been conducted on peristaltic robots, early designs are often constrained by mechanical configurations and material constraints, which restrict kinematic capability, particularly steering control. In contrast, snails s...
This paper presents mathematical models to estimate the kinematics and dynamics of wheeled and tracked robots. The models account for the physical–mechanical characteristics of the ground, the influence of the center of gravity displacement on...
This study is about the manufacturing of a personified automatic robotic lawn mower with image recognition. The system structure is that the platform above the crawler tracks is combined with the lawn mower, steering motor, slide rail, and webcam to...
In-pipe robots must navigate narrow, curved passages where rigid mechanisms often require bulky steering units. Soft crawlers offer better compliance but typically rely on multiple actuators or reconfigurable contacts to achieve multi-directional mot...
This paper presents the technological developments and the policy contexts for the project “Autonomous Robotic Sea-Floor Infrastructure for Bentho-Pelagic Monitoring” (ARIM). The development is based on the national experience with roboti...
Regular maintenance of wire rope is considered the key to ensuring the safe operation of a sluice gate. Along these lines, in this work, a six-wheeled wire rope climbing robot was proposed, which can carry cleaning and maintenance tools for online cl...
The inspection and maintenance of large-scale industrial structures are major challenges that require time-efficient and reliable solutions to ensure the healthy condition of structures during operation. Autonomous robots may provide a promising solu...
Gait generation method is one of the important contents of snake robot motion control. Different gait generation methods produce completely different forms of control functions, so snake robots need more complicated programming logic and processes to...
Traditional sweet potato transplanters have the problem of seedling leakage and can only accomplish one transplantation method at a time, which does not meet the requirements of complex planting terrain that requires multiple transplantation methods....
In the context of Industry 4.0, user demands for industrial robots have shifted toward diversification and experience-orientation. Effectively integrating users’ affective imagery requirements into industrial-robot form design remains a critica...
A hydraulic drive-based self-propelled photovoltaic panel cleaning robot was developed to tackle the challenges of harsh environmental conditions, difficult roads, and incomplete cleaning of dust particles on the photovoltaic panel surface in photovo...
Feature tracking is essential for welding crawler robots’ trajectory planning. As welding often occurs in dark environments like pipelines or ship hulls, the system requires low-light image capture for laser tracking. However, such images typic...
Articulated tracked robots (ATRs) equipped with dual active flippers are widely used due to their ability to climb over complex obstacles like animals with legs. This paper presents a novel planning framework designed to empower ATRs with the capabil...
Magnetically actuated soft robots enable untethered operation in confined and complex environments; however, achieving controllable directional locomotion in structurally symmetric systems remains a fundamental challenge due to intrinsic force cancel...
Guided wave Electro Magnetic Acoustic Transducers (EMATs) offer an elegant method for structural inspection and localisation relative to geometric features, such as welds. This paper presents a Lorentz force EMAT construction framework, where a numer...
To enable the apple picking robot to quickly and accurately detect apples under the complex background in orchards, we propose an improved You Only Look Once version 4 (YOLOv4) model and data augmentation methods. Firstly, the crawler technology is u...
Robotised Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) has revolutionised the field, increasing the speed of repetitive scanning procedures and ability to reach hazardous environments. Application of robot-assisted NDT within specific industries such as remanufactu...
Three-dimensional path planning is instrumental in path decision making and obstacle avoidance for deep-sea mining vehicles (DSMV). However, conventional particle swarm algorithms have been prone to trapping in local optima and have slow convergence...
Complete coverage path planning for sowing machinery is a challenging task since sown areas should not be repeatedly traversed, which is a major difference with the planning of cleaning robots. This paper proposes an improved biological neural networ...
This paper proposes a solid-state-LiDAR-inertial-visual fusion framework containing two subsystems: the solid-state-LiDAR-inertial odometry (SSLIO) subsystem and the visual-inertial odometry (VIO) subsystem. Our SSLIO subsystem has two novelties that...
This study addresses the ’last-mile’ transportation challenges that arise in steep and narrow forest terrain by proposing a novel robotic palanquin system called roCaGo. It is inspired by the mechanical principles of two-wheel-steering an...