AUTONOMOUS ROBOT FOR MONITORING GROUND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

Abstract

The great interest in cultural heritage reflects a person's desire to know and understand their origins and achievements. However, archaeological sites, like the natural environment, are finite non-renewable resources. Of all the types of heritage under threat, archaeological sites and their wealth of information and artifacts are the most threatened. In current practice, options for the preservation of archaeological sites include reconstruction, reassembly (anastilesis), in situ conservation and protection, including shelter and/or tissue consolidation, ex situ preservation by relocation, and reburial with or without site interpretation. her. However, it is very important not to move or lose artifacts during archaeological excavations. If they are lost or moved, their information potential is lost. In order to ensure constant control of the process of archaeological research, fixing the artifacts found, building a three-dimensional model of the object under study and ensuring safety at the site, an excavation monitoring system has been developed, deployed on an autonomous robot. The objective of this study is the development of hardware and software for the robot. The robot is a suspended platform for data collection, the movement of which is provided by several cables fixed on fixed supports. The movement of the platform (both in the plane and in height) is provided by changing the length of the cables. Such a movement scheme makes it possible to move the platform in the entire plane of the triangle formed by the fixed supports, as well as to descend or ascend to a height limited by the height of the supports themselves. The data acquisition platform is a flat platform with a communication module, a microcontroller and a battery installed on it. A gyro stabilizer is attached to the bottom, with a video camera and a rangefinder mounted on it, which allows you to dampen vibrations during the movement of the platform and external disturbances. A multi-agent algorithm for the operation of the robot monitoring system during excavation is presented. A program has been developed for managing and collecting data from the monitoring system of archaeological sites.To test the monitoring system, a robot prototype was made, which was tested during excavations of a complex of archaeological monuments in the Baksan region of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic.