Authors:
Marcelo Paravisi
1
;
Vitor A. M. Jorge
2
and
Alexandre Amory
2
Affiliations:
1
Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, School of Technology, PUCRS University and Brazil
;
2
School of Technology, PUCRS University and Brazil
Keyword(s):
Robotics Simulation, Disaster Robotics, Disaster Simulation, Urban Flooding, Hydrological Models, USV.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics
;
Modeling, Simulation and Architectures
;
Robotics and Automation
;
Virtual Environment, Virtual and Augmented Reality
Abstract:
Testing and benchmarking robots in actual disaster scenarios is risky and sometimes nearly impossible. The lack of adequate tests could make robots more vulnerable and less effective in an actual disaster situation. However, even if it was possible to test them in a disaster scenario, the test itself would have high risks for the equipment and the robot operator. For this reason, simulations can be a powerful alternative to validate unmanned systems in safe and controlled virtual environments. The main challenge is to devise an accurate virtual scenario as close as possible to an actual disaster scenario. This problem is particularly harder if the robot in question is an unmanned surface vehicle (USV), mainly due to the numerous disturbances which can affect the robot. This paper presents and discusses the simulation of an urban flooding scenario with accurate environmental disturbances faced by an USV, such as water currents, waves and winds. Results demonstrate that these environme
ntal disturbances have a relevant effect on the USV’s ability to perform basic navigational tasks. The main conclusion of this work is that there is a long road ahead of USV simulators in order to validate USVs in realistic disaster scenario simulations.
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