Hexapod Robot for detecting Landmines with SILO6 as baseline, during war actions
P. Naga Srilekha
Infotech Enterprises Limited,
Hyderabad, A.P.
srilekha.pamarthi@infotech-enterprises.com
ABSTRACT
Removal of antipersonnel landmines is a worldwide problem
currently requiring the use of new technologies such as
improved sensors and efficient mobile robots. Our paper is
focused on the description of a system that relies on a walking
robot that carries sensors to detect and locate antipersonnel
landmines efficiently and effectively. The paper describes the
main features of the walking robot and additional equipment
purposefully developed for this kind of application with the
study of SILO6 walking robot as reference. The overall system
consists of a sensor head that can detect certain landmine types,
a manipulator to move the sensor head over large areas, a
locating system based on a global positioning system, a remote
supervisor computer and the SILO6 walking robot used as the
subsystems’ carrier. The whole system has been configured to
work in a semi-autonomous mode with a view also to robot
mobility and energy efficiency. Some of the achievements
already accomplished with this system are reported.
Keywords: Legged robots; Walking robots; Demining robots;
Landmine detection; Landmine location; humanitarian demining;
Communication layer.
I. INTRODUCTION
An antipersonnel landmine is a pyrotechnic instrument
developed to be activated by an involuntary action of the
enemy in order to put him out of combat. Although mines are
scattered mainly in war actions, they remain active after
deployment and retain the potential to kill animals and
civilians, especially children, or amputate their limbs, for a
period of more than 50 years. Neutralization of landmines is
accomplished in two different ways, military demining and
humanitarian demining, which present important differences.
Military demining is performed during the conflict; its main
purpose is to form a safe passageway for troops and it clears
away 80% of the mines in the target area. On the other hand,
humanitarian demining is a post-conflict activity that is
intended to restore the countryside and according to the UN
should eliminate about 99.6% of the mines in the area.
Detection and deactivation of antipersonnel land mines in
humanitarian missions is thus a serious worldwide problem
with great impact on politics, agriculture, tourism, industry,
environment and, of course, human welfare.
Both military and humanitarian demining have been
accomplished up to now by using human operators handling
manual equipment to detect mines or by using heavy armored
manned vehicles that blast the mines mechanically. The first
solution is very dangerous and slow, but efficient. The
M. Harish Kumar
Infotech Enterprises Limited,
Hyderabad, A.P.
harish.mudapaka@infotech-enterprises.com
second solution is safer and quicker, but inefficient on
irregular terrain, where it achieves cleaning rates of only up
to 70%. Also, such heavy, cumbrous vehicles cannot access
minefields across fragile or narrow bridges, narrow roads and
paths or between the debris of buildings. Additionally, these
machines are vulnerable to antitank mines, which are
frequently laid along with antipersonnel landmines.
For instance, a legged robot only needs a discrete number of
ground-contact points; therefore, its likelihood of stepping on
an antipersonnel mine is lower than that of traditional
vehicles. If a legged robot detects an antipersonnel mine, it
has a higher likelihood of going farther than wheeled or
tracked robots do because robots based on wheels and tracks
need to perform different turning-and backing manoeuvres to
avoid the mine. On the contrary, legs only need to stand on
discrete points along the path and exhibit inherent omni
directionality, which lets legged robots proceed forward
without performing turning-and backing manoeuvres. This
feature allows all potential alarms in a field to be located
before the removal task begins. Removal is normally
accomplished by experienced human teams or different kinds
of robots.
Traditional vehicles, unfortunately, are unable to negotiate
very irregular terrain because their bodies accommodate to
terrain inclination and in so doing jeopardize the robot’s
stability. However, legged robots can negotiate irregular
terrain whilst keeping their bodies always leveled and thus
maintaining static stability. This is essential when the robot
carries pieces of equipment or sensors that need to be leveled
whilst measuring. Mobility over obstacles and ditches and
even on stairs is one of the foremost advantages legged
robots hold over their wheeled or tracked counterparts. That
means legged robots can operate in both structured and
unstructured environments. Also, legged robots can walk
over loose and sandy terrain, and legs fitted with the proper
sensors can identify stepped terrain and prevent foot slippage.
Finally, a legged robot provides additional motion along the
x, y and z components of the body reference frame and even
body rotations without changing its footholds. Therefore, this
motion provides additional degrees-of-freedom for the
robot’s sensors and onboard equipment. However, the centre-
of-gravity workspace of a legged robot when the feet are
fixed on the ground is quite small and we cannot expect to
take advantage of this feature for scanning large areas in
humanitarian demining tasks.
 II. SYSTEM OUTLINE
The demining system is conceived around a walking robot
used as a mobile platform to carry the required subsystem for
detecting and locating antipersonnel landmines. The overall
system is thus broken down into the subsystems described in
the following paragraphs and illustrated in Fig. 1.
A. Sensor head
The core of the sensor head is the mine-detecting set, i.e., a
device capable of detecting landmines. Unfortunately, there
are many different kinds of mines. Some mines have metallic
components and can be detected by using metal detectors that
work on the principle of electromagnetic induction; however,
there are also landmines made of plastic or wood, with very
small metallic components or no metal at all, which cannot
be detected with this kind of sensor. One more inconvenience
is that the electromagnetic induction system is sensitive to
any metal debris and so gives a large number of false alarms.
Our system is designed to provide knowledge about robotic
technology for the specific task of humanitarian demining
rather than to provide new sensors. We are only concerned
about the position of potential alarms given for any kind of
detecting system; thus for the sake of simplicity we will use
the simplest sensor: a metal detector. Nevertheless, different
mine detectors could be accommodated into the sensor head
presented in this paper. The sensor head also needs additional
elements for detecting the ground and objects in the way. The
sensor head must keep the metal detector at a given height
above the ground. The system controller can perform this
task by using simple range sensors; therefore, the sensor head
incorporates three pairs of infrared sensors for this purpose.
Flex sensors (plastic ribbons which change electrical
resistance as they bend) are also provided to detect objects in
the sensor head’s trajectory.
B. Scanning manipulator
Refer Fig.1 The sensor head is essentially a one-point sensor.
That means it is able to detect metal components at just one
point. The efficiency of such a device can be improved by
moving the sensor head through a large area. Using a
manipulator is one simple way of enlarging the workspace of
this device. Thus, our system uses a robot manipulator to
move the sensor head and to adapt the sensor head to terrain
irregularities as well.
C. Locator
After detecting a suspect object, the system has to mark the
object’s exact location in a database for subsequent analysis
and deactivation. An accuracy of about ±2 cm is adequate for
locating landmines. This accuracy can be obtained with
commercial systems such as Differential Global Positioning
Systems (DGPSs). However, DGPSs are prone to failures
due to degradation or loss of the satellite signal. This can
occur when temporal errors in the signal appear or when the
antenna (the robot) is in shadow areas. To avoid these two
problems the system implements a dead-reckoning system
that allows it to keep track of the robot’s position by using
the position of all robot joints and the body heading provided
by an electromagnetic compass. The information of all three
of these subsystems is input to an extended-Kalman filter
(EKF) that substantially improves the accuracy of the robot’s
position.
D. Mobile platform
To configure the walking robot, the following specific
features have been considered as basic characteristics for an
efficient machine:
1. The mobile platform should be based on a six-legged
robot. Section 5 presents the advantages of this robot
configuration.
2. The total robot weight is very important. A light weight
means the robot can be easily rescued from technical or
logistical problems. Therefore, the robot should be
lightweight enough to be handled by two operators. Robot
encumbrance is also an important feature for exploring
narrow areas.
3. The robot should be autonomous from the energy point of
view in order to avoid problems derived from managing
tethers with obstacles (rocks, trees, etc.). The same would be
applicable to communication between the walking robot and
the operator station, although in this case aerial
communication can be easily installed.
4. The robot should be semi-autonomous from the control
point of view. Therefore, a remote operator (supervisor) must
be in the loop to control the system manually through tele-
operation and collaborative control when needed. Some kind
of manual mode should also be provided to allow the
operator controlling independent robot joints to recover the
robot from extreme situations. Nevertheless, the system must
be fully autonomous in aspects such as gait generation,
terrain adaptation and attitude control.
5. The overall system must be configured to optimize power
consumption, mobility and stability. These are antagonistic
conditions which are balanced through detailed design as
presented below.
E. Controller
The overall control system will be distributed into two main
computers, the onboard computer and the operator station.
The onboard computer is in charge of controlling and co-
coordinating the manipulator and leg joints, communicating
with the DGPS, the mine detector and the operator station via
radio Ethernet, recording the robot joint positions, reading
the electromagnetic compass and computing the EKF
algorithm. The operator station is a remote computer in
charge of defining the mobile robot’s main task and
managing the potential-alarm database and constitutes the
human–machine system interface.
F. Power supply
From the power supply viewpoint, there are two main
solutions for autonomous robots based on electrical actuators:
(1) batteries and (2) AC power supply using a fuel generator.
The second solution provides higher autonomy but its heavy
weight and encumbrance factor are serious drawbacks. On
the other hand, DC batteries are lightweight but exhibit less
autonomy. The latter seem to have greater advantages over
the former. On the other hand, fuel-cell technology, which
currently can do no better than a low power/weight ratio, is
growing quickly and promises to be the best candidate in the
near future.
Summarizing, the mobile robot is to be configured as a six-
legged autonomous robot that carries a scanning manipulator,
which handles a sensor head consisting of a metal detector,
infrared sensors and a set of flex sensors. Tele-operation and
operator-in-the-control-loop techniques are the control modes
of the system.
III. DETECTING AND LOCATING LANDMINES
This section describes two of the main subsystems, the sensor
head and the locator. They are configured around specific
commercial devices but other sensors are used to improve
their features. For instance, the sensor head is based on a
commercial mine detector set but it also integrates several
range and touch sensors to improve its mobility through
manipulator motion. The heart of the locator is a commercial
DGPS whose functionality is increased by using joint-
encoder information and electromagnetic compass data
(dead-reckoning) as well. The following subsections
introduce these two subsystems.
A. Detecting landmines: sensor head configuration
Refer Fig.2 The simplest sensor technology for detecting
landmines relies on a metal detector.
This sensor is simple, lightweight and easy to use; however,
it is inefficient with non-metallic mines (plastic or wooden
mines). In such cases other types of sensors are required,
such as sensors based on ground penetrating radar (GPR),
chemical sensors or artificial noses. The Schiebel AN-19/2
commercial mine-detecting set is used for our purposes. Fig.
4, which consists of a support holding the metal detector plus
additional range sensors (infrared sensors) for detecting the
ground and controlling sensor head height and attitude. These
sensors are located in pairs defining the upper and lower
limits of the band in which the sensor head works. This array
allows the controller to adapt the sensor head to terrain
irregularities. A number of flex sensors are located around
the sensor head to detect objects in the sensor head’s
trajectory. This enables the controller to steer around
obstacles.
B. Locating Landmines
1) Global Positioning system
Our mission requirements state that alarms must be located
with an accuracy of about ±2 cm. This accuracy can be
achieved with the GPS real-time kinematic (RTK) technique,
but this technique requires an additional correction. In our
case, that correction is achieved by using an extra GPS
antenna placed at the operator station. With these preliminary
specifications the DGPS 5700, manufactured by TRIMBLE,
was selected for our application. Despite of the advantages of
DGPS techniques for locating mobile robots outdoors, the
degradation or loss of the satellite signal can cause errors in
position accuracy. Thus, complementary positioning systems
such as odometry or dead-reckoning techniques are
sometimes required. An additional problem of using DGPS
for estimating the position of walking robots is that, because
of the intrinsic low speed of a walking robot, during several
readings, the data obtained from the DGPS are constant
because the position increments are smaller than the DGPS
error range.
2) Odometry
Odometry is a technique extensively used for determining
both indoor and outdoor location that consists in measuring
the distance travelled by a vehicle in general. In wheeled
robots the information is provided by position sensors fixed
to the wheel shafts. If the wheeled robot is based on a
differential driving system, the information from the wheels
on both sides can be used to compute the orientation of the
robot and then it is possible to compute not only the distance
travelled but the position of the robot in a world reference
frame. For legged robots, odometry consists in computing the
robot’s displacement by using the information provided by
the joint-positioning sensors (potentiometers, encoders, etc.).
Our prototype uses a 2000-pulse/turn encoder in each axis
motor and every motor is geared with the gearing ratio given
in Table 1. Therefore, joint resolution is very good and we
consider there is no error associated to this measurement. The
odometry provides information on position increments with
respect to the previous position and it is computed based on
the body reference frame. The main problem with this system
is that the position errors are cumulative, i.e., they increase
with the distance walked. These errors are caused mainly by
link and joint flexion and foot slippage.
3) Dead-reckoning techniques
One way of reducing the errors in odometry is by using an
additional sensor system to improve the geometric
computations used to determine the robot’s position. A
heading sensor can help in determining the robot position
with enhanced accuracy. An electromagnetic compass or
gyroscope can be used for this purpose. In our case, an
electromagnetic compass (model 1525 from Analog Sensor)
is used to measure the absolute orientation of the robot
around its vertical axis. This sensor has a precision of about
10 in average; however, the sensor readings are severely
affected by the robot electromechanical equipment, metallic
mobile masses such as legs, and external disturbances. Leg
transfers, for instance, cause strong electromagnetic
interference, as well as mechanical shocks and vibrations that
affect measurement. To avoid these inconveniences,
electromagnetic compass readings are performed only when
all of the legs are in their support phase. The electromagnetic
compass must be maintained in a vertical position in order to
accurately measure the orientation; this is accomplished by
moving the robot with its body leveled. A pair of
inclinometers helps to keep the robot body leveled. The
technique that merges these devices is termed dead
reckoning, which is defined as the determination of the
position of a vehicle from the record of the courses moved,
the distance made and the known or estimated drift, without
the aid of external observations. Dead-reckoning techniques
use the kinematic robot model to compute the robot’s
position relative to its initial position and, like odometry, also
present the problem of cumulative errors. However, there are
less accumulated errors because the orientation of the robot is
known and the position increments can be transformed more
accurately with respect to the body reference frame. These
techniques are especially important for locating the robot in
our application, for instance, when satellite signal reception
is bad.
4) Sensor fusion
The merging method is termed sensor fusion, a method
allowing for the integration and fusion of data obtained from
different sources to produce more accurate information. In
this particular case, we use the Kalman filter, a well-known
and easy-to-apply set of mathematical equations for
estimating the state of a process.
IV. SCANNING MANIPULATOR
A scanning device is therefore required to enable the sensor
to sweep large areas. The easiest system is a manipulator
tailor-made for this task. Such a manipulator requires 3-
DOFs for positioning the sensor in a 3D volume, assuming
that the system must scan non-flat areas. Also, the detector
needs to be adapted to terrain inclinations; hence, two
additional DOFs are needed at the wrist to control detector
attitude. Because the detector has radial symmetry, no
additional DOFs would be needed for sensor orientation. To
sum up, a manipulator with at least 5-DOFs is needed to
accomplish the task.
The manipulator is specifically designed to carry the sensor
head and the design is optimized to carry just this load. First,
the load is balanced to maintain the sensor head in a level
position with no motor torque. Thus, the sensor head can be
moved by up to ±450 by applying low torques. This motion
range for the 2-DOF of the wrist is considered adequate for
our application. For the arm structure we choose the rotary–
rotary–rotary configuration. Two key design points for the
manipulator are to balance the motor loads to decrease
required torques and to place the motors inside the structure
to decrease manipulator encumbrance. Table defined above
lists the manipulator’s features. Some dimensions, such as
manipulator link lengths, depend on the hexapod’s body
height and leg span. These questions are addressed below.
A. Hexapod robot
It is well known that statically stable legged robots are
inherently slow machines, and this feature is theoretically
dependent on the number of legs the machine has. A
hexapod, then, can achieve higher speed than a quadruped,
and it is well known that a hexapod achieves its highest
speed.
B. Leg configuration
Walking robots require legs that touch the ground only at
certain contact points; therefore, a 3-DOF mechanism
suffices to accomplish motion. Legs have to be designed to
be lightweight mechanisms because their weight is part of the
robot’s total weight, which must be supported by the legs
themselves. Hence, the leg’s payload/weight ratio must be
high. An additional consideration is that the payload must be
supported with the legs in different configurations. The first
step for leg design was to compute the torques the robot has
to undergo with the legs in insect configuration, which is, of
course, the worst possible case. Joint 2 for all legs must bear
up to the highest torque. A traditional way of reducing motor
size is to use actuators working in parallel, that is, actuators
placed so that two actuators work at the same time to
accomplish motion in a single joint. Nevertheless, such
mechanisms allow motions in two joints simultaneously.
That is, we move two independent joints with the combined
action of two actuators. This configuration gives the benefit
of using small motors if we impose some constraints on the
possible trajectories. As a parallel mechanism we chose a
differential driving device that is used for joints 2 and 3. Joint
1 is configured around a typical rotary joint. With this leg
configuration we have all three motors confined within a very
small volume near the body. This gives additional advantages
because the expensive leg components are away from the
foot, the most dangerous point in the leg. This decreases the
cost of replacing parts in the case of accidental mine blasting.
Figure below shows a drawing of the leg indicating the main
parts and components.
Feet for legged robots are basically built in two
configurations: a ball fixed to the ankle or a flat sole with
articulated passive joints. We have chosen the first design for
our application because it is the simplest and can work quite
well on stiff terrain; however, on loose terrain it is prone to
sink. If the radius of the ball increases, the foot sinking
decreases, and there is a minimum foot radius that makes the
robot efficient. Nevertheless, on stiff terrain a ball-type foot
will try to rotate, changing the support point of the foot. If
this foot motion is absorbed by joint backlash and link
flexion, the robot can work properly; otherwise, the
kinematics of the foot must be included in the control
algorithms.
The body of a walking robot is mainly a frame to which the
legs are attached and on which the robot subsystem is loaded.
Thus, the body must be rigid enough to withstand
deformation and big enough to contain the required
subsystems, such as an onboard computer, electronics,
drivers, a DGPS and batteries. The preliminary volumes of
these subsystems define the total volume of the body.
C.Control system
The SILO6 control system is distributed between the operator
station and the onboard controller. The operator station is a
PC-based computer that runs the Windows XP operating
system. The onboard controller is a half-sized PC that runs
QNX, a UNIX-like real-time multitasking operating system.
Communication between operator station and onboard
computer is performed by radio Ethernet.
D. Operator station
The operator station is located remotely from the walking
robot and is in charge of human–machine interface, database
management and system communication. The human–
machine interface is a module intended to fulfill three main
requirements: (a) robot-state monitoring, (b) robot tele-
operation and (c) task definition.
E. Walking robot controller
Refer Fig.3 The robot controller is a distributed hierarchical
system comprising a PC-based computer, a data-acquisition
board and eight three-axis control boards based on the
LM629 microcontrollers, interconnected through the PC bus.
The LM629 microcontrollers include digital PID filters
provided with a trajectory generator used to execute closed
loop control for position and velocity in each joint. Every
microcontroller commands a Z12ADDC motor-joint driver
based on the PWM technique. The gait generator is the main
module on the onboard computer. It generates the sequence
of leg lifting and foot placement to move the robot in a stable
manner. The SILO6 gait generator is based on an alternating
tripod gait. The foot path that the robot follows is given as
follows
(xi(k) yi(k) zi(k))T = G (k, i, Rx, L, H, h, d),
For i=1,2……6 k= 1,…..2N
where k is the sample period, i the leg number, 2N the
number of samples in a locomotion cycle, R, L, H, h and d
are geometric parameters of the robot defined in Figure given
below and G is the gait function that provides the foot
positions and is defined by:
xi(k) = σ(i)Px + (-1)ζ(k/N+1)Rx × (0.5 – (1/N-1)((k-1)modN) -
1))
For I = 1…6 k = 1…2N
yid(k) = (-1)i+1 (D/2 + L), for i=1,2,5,6
i+1
(-1) (D/2 + L + d), for i=3, 4
zi(k) = h sin (πk/N)(1 – ζ(k/N+1)) – H
for i = 1, 4, 5 k = 1,…..2N
-h sin (πk/N) (1 – ζ (k/N+1)) – H
for i = 2, 3, 6 k = 1…2N
Function σ(i) defines the displacement of the body
attachment of leg i with respect to the center of the body
reference frame (x, y, z) along the x-axis and is given by:
1, for a front leg
σ(i) = 0, for a middle leg
-1, for a rear leg
ζ(x) is a function that is defined for rounding the function x
to the nearest integer or zero, and mod represents the
modulus function. Above equations give the foot positions of
the legs along a locomotion cycle. The legs in one tripod
move forward (leg transfer phase) during the first half cycle
and move backwards during the second half (leg support
phase). For the other tripod the x component works
180degrees out of phase.
The y component given by y-component maintains each foot
in a straight line parallel to the x-axis of the body reference
frame. Note that the distance from the foot trajectory to the x-
axis is different for the central legs. The component zi must
be above the ground for a leg in its transfer phase and on the
ground for a leg in its support phase. The leg trajectory in this
component can be defined in several very different ways: as a
piecewise function, a polynomial function, a trigonometric
function, etc. For the sake of simplicity of formulation, a
piecewise function that consists of a straight segment and a
sine function has been chosen, and thus zi(k) is defined by Z-
component.
V. CONCLUSION
The above concept is the study of how the landmine
detection is done with the help of SILO6 hexapod robot built
previously. Because removal of antipersonnel landmines
manually is very difficult and sometimes dangerous so
robotisation of the field may decrease the hazards and
increase the detection efficiency. The sensor technology
mentioned above are for minimum requirement to increase
the efficiency the sensors used may be increased by
incorporating other type of techniques or by using other type
of techniques. The proposed technology is only for the
detection of the landmines so that the human has to approach
the spotted area and then dismantle the landmine, this is only
for detection purpose. If the robot is equipped with some
drilling techniques and dismantling techniques the robot can
be made more efficient for dismantling the landmine too
which contributes a more efficient model to the defense
industry.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Albuquerque,
NM, USA, April 20–25 1997, pp. 494–500.
The model we proposed above is only a prototype and
involves a lot of sensor technology to implement a full-
[14] M. Moronti, M. Sanguineti, M. Zoppi, R. Molfino,
fledged antipersonnel landmine detection robot, includes lot
Roboclimber: proposal for online gait planning, 7th
of funding too. So SILO6 robot can be enhanced with our
International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots
proposed technique to increase the efficiency of the SILO6
CLAWAR04, Madrid, Spain, 2004.
robot.
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