A Low-Cost Climbing Unmanned Ground Vehicle for Hazardous Environment Exploration of Emergency Operators

Abstract

This article presents the conceptualization, design, hardware and software development, and integration of a wirelessly controlled unmanned ground vehicle for the exploration of hazardous environments. The proposed system integrates four actuators (two motors per track) combined with a customized design of the chassis and tracks. An ESP32 with an OV2640 camera and a DHT 11 temperature and humidity sensor provide real-time video stream and values of the environmental conditions through an ESP32. The ESP32 itself is designed as a web server providing full controllability by means of a website with control inputs being from a keyboard, a compatible Bluetooth controller, or slider objects on the webpage which makes the overall platform user friendly and adaptable for the use of emergency operators in a real context/scenario of an emergency. Preliminary testing of the system shows the capability of the vehicle to overcome rough terrains with slopes higher than 60° and drive at or in excess of human walking speed.

Received: 06 May 2025 | Revised: 22 July 2025 | Accepted: 9 September 2025

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Author Contribution Statement

Sam Halvorsen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – final draft. Emanuele Lindo Secco: Writing – review and editing, Writing – final draft .