SubT STIX Qualification Submission : CTU-CRAS

This is the STIX qualification submission of the CTU-CRAS team. It demonstrates required capabilities for two tracked robots equipped by flippers, one small hexapod and one mid-size quadcopter. The organization of the document strictly follows qualification guidelines. Demonstrated systems do not use any GPS-sensor or GPS-based navigation. Part 1: Team Information • Team Name: CTU-CRAS • Team Organization: Czech Technical University in Prague, Center for Robotics and Autonomous Systems • Organization Location(s): Czech republic • Team Point-of-Contact: Karel Zimmermann, zimmerk@fel.cvut. cz, +420 777882256 • List of all team members and their affiliations: – Karel Zimmermann, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Cybernetics – Vojtech Šalanský, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Cybernetics – Martin Pecka, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Cybernetics – Tomáš Svoboda, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Cybernetics – Martin Saska, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Cybernetics – Vojtech Spurný, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Cybernetics – Tomas Báča, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Cybernetics – Matej Petrlík, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Cybernetics – Tomas Krajník, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Computer Science – Tomas Roucek, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Computer Science – Jan Faigl, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Computer Science – Jan Bayer, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Computer Science – Petr Čížek, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Computer Science – Miloš Prágr, Czech Technical University in Prague, Department of Computer Science – Francois Pomerleau, University of Laval, Canada – Vladimír Kubelka, University of Laval, Canada Part 2: Technical Approach (500 words max per sub-section) Figure 1. UGV-VRAS robot: tracked-robots equipped by flippers (left), its sensor suite (middle) and human interface (right). Figure 2. UGV-Cameleon robot: Operating in adverse conditions (fog, gale, night). Figure 3. UGV-Hexapod robot: Operating in different terrrains. Autonomy: high-level software architecture, human interfaces High-level software architecture: The software architecture is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS). The high-level planning for the multi-robot search & rescue task, will be based on the system [1], which we have successfully used to win the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge 2017 [2]. Human interface is based on RVIZ/RQt visualization tool, see Figure 1-right for details. Human interface allows to control the pan-tilt thermal camera, virtual PTZ camera sythetized from panoramic ladybug images and visualize 3D point cloud map with detected artifacts. There are three different motion control modes: (i) manual, which allows the full control of tracks and flipper using a gamepad, (ii) semi-autonomous, which allows to control the speed, while flippers are controlled autonomously and (iii) fully autonomous, where the robot is controlled autonomously toward waypoints. Waypoints are provided either by the human operator or by the high-level planning system.