Experimental Validation of HeritageBot III, a Robotic Platform for Cultural Heritage

Activity in Cultural Heritage frames aims to have a good monitoring of unknown cultural heritage also in an inaccessible site decreasing the cost of interventions. There are several robotics systems available both as rovers and drones. They are suited for inspection tasks in risky environments or for surveillance purposes provided of several sensors able to detect and monitor the area under examination, sometimes they can be also equipped with an end-effector for manipulation tasks or to collect objects. This paper introduces HeritageBot III (HBIII), a service robot for Cultural Heritage frames, which consists in a robotic platform with a modular design for both ground locomotion and flight capability. The proposed design is able to merge the advantages of drone and legged mobile robots in an innovative platform, able to navigate in most unknown environment.