This paper proposes functional test methods of first-aid gadgets which are special end-effectors, for relief robot. In recent years, researches have been actively conducted on robots that can perform rescue operations on behalf of rescue workers in dangerous areas such as disasters and wars. These special robots mainly perform the task of finding or transporting injured people. However, it is sometimes they necessary to provide first aid in the field. Among the various first-aid operations, gadgets are being developed for oxygen supply, injection, and hemostasis operations that can be used in a defense/civilian area by using robot technology. Previous studies have proposed first-aid gadgets that are suitable for onsite situations and enable robots to perform the given task quickly and accurately. In this paper, we design a test procedure suitable for the functions of first-aid gadgets, summarize the results, and introduce future research directions.

This paper deals with the development and application of control algorithms for series elastic relief robots for rescue operations in harsh environment like disasters or battlefield. The joint controller applied in this paper has a cascade structure combining inner loop for torque control and outer loop for position control. The torque loop contains feedforward and feedback controller and disturbance observer for independent, decentralized joint control. The effect of the elastic component and motor dynamics are treated as the nonlinear disturbance and compensated with the disturbance observer of torque controller. For the collision detection, Band Designed Disturbance Observer is configured to recognize/respond to external disturbance robustly in the continuously changing environment. The controller is applied to a 7-dof series elastic manipulator to evaluate the torque tracking and collision detection/response performance.