An Interpretable Environmental Sensing System with Unmanned Ground Vehicle for First Aid Detection

Abstract

Today, as a result of the development of remote sensing techniques, the importance of using sensing sensors on unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) has increased. Developing sensor technologies are used in many different areas, from natural disasters to the defense industry. Here, among many different scenarios, it is too important to provide immediate medical first aid at the time of disasters. The unmanned ground vehicle, thanks to its sensors, is able to recognize its environment and transfer the correct data about the environment to the relevant people or institutions, preventing possible bad scenarios. Autonomous robots used today have insufficient mobility or sensing techniques and are costly for individuals or institutions. In this study, it is aimed that the developed unmanned ground vehicle can be easily accessed in environments where it is planned to detect people needing first aid, thanks to the sensor techniques to be used and to perform its task more effectively by recognizing the relevant environment. However, the low cost of the developed unmanned ground vehicle is very important. In the developed system, a LIDAR laser scanner sensor is used to model the environment where the unmanned ground vehicle is located. Within the scope of the study, 3D environmental modeling was carried out using 2D LIDAR. In the system design, the environment definition has been enriched by using the image processing technique and infrared camera. The motor driving operations of the unmanned ground vehicle and the control of various peripherals are provided by the Arduino microcontroller. LIDAR and camera are controlled on Raspberry Pi embedded system computer. All data from the LIDAR sensor, camera, motor driver, and other peripherals are displayed and controlled in a single interface via the developed mobile application. As a result of the study, an ergonomic, safe, integrated robot design that will reduce financial resources for the organizations targeted to use unmanned ground vehicles, where the user can monitor the dangerous environments remotely and recognize the relevant environment, has been created. Furthermore, thanks to the formed IoT synergy, the detection of people needing first aid in unreachable places can be ensured easily with an unmanned solution.