Tethered dual-wheeled robot for exploration of volcanic fumaroles on steep slopes

EasyChair Preprint 1272

Abstract

The observation of volcanoes is critical in the estimation of volcanic activities and disaster prevention. Volcanic gas from fumaroles is an effective target for these observations. This is because the gas is highly mobile and quickly transmits underground information to the surface. However, as typical volcanic gas is high temperature and contains toxic chemical components, the manned observation of volcanic fumaroles is dangerous. Therefore, in this research, the authors propose an improved version of the dual-wheeled robot to obtain volcanic information from around fumaroles. This robot has a passive tether-guide module to improve its turning range on a slope, which enables the robot to change its traversal direction independent of the tether direction; thus, it has improved turning motion, diagonal traversal motion, and crossing motion on a steep slope. Indoor and field experiments proved the validity of these mechanisms. The lessons learned from these field experiments are also discussed.

Keyphrases: dual-wheeled robot, steep slope, tethered robot, volcanic environment

@booklet{EasyChair:1272,
  author    = {Keiji Nagatani and Masaki Momii},
  title     = {Tethered dual-wheeled robot for exploration of volcanic fumaroles on steep slopes},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 1272},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2019}}