Abstract: Rescue robots are expected to carry out reconnaissance and dexterity operations in unknown environments comprising unstructured obstacles. Although a wide variety of designs and implementations have been presented within the field of rescue robotics, embedding all mobility, dexterity, and reconnaissance capabilities in a single robot remains a challenging problem. This paper explains the design and implementation of Karo, a mobile robot that exhibits a high degree of mobility at the side of maintaining required dexterity and exploration capabilities for urban search and rescue (USAR) missions. We first elicit the system requirements of a standard rescue robot from the frameworks of Rescue Robot League (RRL) of RoboCup and then, propose the conceptual design of Karo by drafting a locomotion and manipulation system. Considering that, this work presents comprehensive design processes along with detail mechanical design of the robots platform and its 7-DOF manipulator. Further, we present the design and implementation of the command and control system by discussing the robots power system, sensors, and hardware systems. In conjunction with this, we elucidate the way that Karos software system and humanrobot interface are implemented and employed. Furthermore, we undertake extensive evaluations of Karos field performance to investigate whether the principal objective of this work has been satisfied. We demonstrate that Karo has effectively accomplished assigned standardized rescue operations by evaluating all aspects of its capabilities in both RRLs test suites and training suites of a fire department. Finally, the comprehensiveness of Karos capabilities has been verified by drawing quantitative comparisons between Karos performance and other leading robots participating in RRL. ; Published version
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