Audio navigation of rescue robots based on speech recognition

A rescue robot often can not directly find the target shouting for help which is in other rooms or invisible places in the building by using visual, ultrasonic or infrared ray sensors because of smoke or collapsed walls. The sound can diffract over obstacles due to the long wavelength of audio signals. Combined with the speech recognition technology, an audio navigation system was developed for the rescue robot. This navigation system makes it feasible to guide the rescue robot run to the target shouting for help in global motion control. Experimental results verified the feasibility of the navigation system.