Endpoint Vibration Control of a Mobile Mine-Detecting Robotic Manipulator

The procedure for humanitarian land mine removal varies greatly. However, one central element is detecting and marking suspected mine locations using sensors such as trained dogs and metal detectors. This step is expensive, tedious, and dangerous. In order to improve the land mine detection process, a reliable, low-cost robotic manipulation system has been constructed. The system consists of long-reach manipulator mounted on a commercially available All-Terrain Vehicle. The system is capable of autonomously scanning for mines with different types of sensors. An electromagnetic induction metal detector is used in conjunction with ground-penetrating radar to detect metal and larger heterogeneities in the ground, i.e. mine detonators and mine casings, respectively. This sensor combination greatly reduces the number of false alarms over the traditional single-sensor approach. Given the long reach of the arm, the endpoint is susceptible to unwanted oscillations that corrupt the scanning information. This paper describes a control system that utilizes input shaping to improve endpoint tracking. The result is a system that generates high-quality sensor information for precise mine identification.