Carnegie Mellon University researchers have demonstrated a wheeled robot in an abandoned coal mine. Named Groundhog, it is equipped with an array of cameras, gas, tilt and sinkage sensors, laser scanners and a gyroscope to help it surmount the obstacles it may encounter in mines.

The robot uses perception technology to build maps from sensor data. It must make its own decisions about where to go, how to get there and, more important, how to return safely. Reliable navigation technology is important because of the hazards in abandoned mines.

The robot also contains computer interfaces that enable people to view the results of its explorations and use the maps it develops. Groundhog incorporates a technique developed at Carnegie Mellon called Simultaneous Localization and Mapping or SLAM, which enables robots to create maps in real time even as they explore an area for the first time.

Groundhog was developed in response to an incident at the Quecreek Mine near Somerset, Pa. last July, when nine miners nearly drowned when they accidentally breached the wall of an adjacent flooded mine that they thought was a safe distance away from where they were working.

Press release