Soft, growing vine robots are well-suited for exploring cluttered, unknown environments, and are theorized to be performant during structural collapse incidents caused by earthquakes, fires, explosions, and material flaws. These vine robots grow from the tip, enabling them to navigate rubble-filled passageways easily. State-of-the-art vine robots have been tested in archaeological and other field settings, but their translational capabilities to urban search and rescue (USAR) are not well understood. To this end, we present a set of experiments designed to test the limits of a vine robot system, the Soft Pathfinding Robotic Observation Unit (SPROUT), operating in an engineered collapsed structure. Our testing is driven by a taxonomy of difficulty derived from the challenges USAR crews face navigating void spaces and their associated hazards. Initial experiments explore the viability of the vine robot form factor, both ideal and implemented, as well as the control and sensorization of the system. A secondary set of experiments applies domain-specific design improvements to increase the portability and reliability of the system. SPROUT can grow through tight apertures, around corners, and into void spaces, but requires additional development in sensorization to improve control and situational awareness.

翻译：柔软、可生长的藤蔓机器人非常适合探索杂乱未知的环境，理论上在地震、火灾、爆炸和材料缺陷引起的结构坍塌事故中能表现出色。这类藤蔓机器人从尖端生长，使其能够轻松穿越充满碎石的通道。最先进的藤蔓机器人已在考古及其他实地场景中经过测试，但其在城市搜救（USAR）中的实际应用潜力尚未得到充分理解。为此，我们设计了一系列实验，旨在测试藤蔓机器人系统——软路径探测机器人观测单元（SPROUT）——在人工设计的坍塌结构中运行的极限。我们的测试基于一套从USAR队伍在穿越空隙空间及其相关危险时所面临挑战中提炼出的难度分类体系。初步实验探索了藤蔓机器人形态（包括理想形态与实现形态）的可行性，以及系统的控制与传感配置。第二组实验通过应用特定领域的设计改进，提升了系统的便携性与可靠性。SPROUT能够穿越狭窄孔隙、绕过拐角并进入空隙空间，但在传感配置方面仍需进一步开发以提升控制能力与态势感知水平。