Development of Automated Shoreline Surveying System Using Amphibious Walking Robot - The Design Concepts and the 1st Field Experiment -

One of the main work is survey work at shoreline in port areas. For instance, harbor-masters survey shorelines to maintain encroached beach, and some work are carried out on weak terrain. Consequently, the primary working force is still human-intensive although the mechanization is desired from viewpoint of the efficiency.

Therefore, we are on the studying automated shoreline surveying system using walking robot which does not damage the terrain seriously. And, we developed prototype robot which had some unique features. One is the same mechanism of all joints, and they are independent respectively to each other as watertight type joint units. Another one is that the legs and the body unit are able to be detached easily in case of maintenance.

In this paper, we describe in detail the design concepts and the features of the prototype robot applied moduled watertight structures, and report the 1st experimental result in the field.