Computer-Aided Bilateral Teleoperation of Manipulators
Viinikainen, Mikko (2014)
Viinikainen, Mikko
2014
Automaatiotekniikan koulutusohjelma
Teknisten tieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Engineering Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2014-02-05
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201402051074
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201402051074
Tiivistelmä
Haptic bilateral teleoperation is often a challenging and mentally demanding job for the operators of robot control systems. It is especially difficult in cases such as the remote maintenance of the ITER divertor region. The difficulty of the ITER divertor maintenance hails from a multitude of reasons: the residual radiation level of the ITER reactor during a shutdown is too high for any human access, the maintenance tunnels of the divertor are confined, the operators have to operate heavy loads in delicate tasks, and only a limited number of radiation tolerant cameras are available for providing video feedback. In addition, most of the maintenance work cannot be automated because of the dynamic nature and complexity of the tasks.
Haptic shared control systems can be used for reducing the amount of mental and physical workload perceived by the operators of remote maintenance systems. To reduce the workload, a haptic shared control system assists the operators by generating virtual forces based on the virtual models of the teleoperation environment and sensor data from the slave manipulator. The generated assistance forces are laid over the force feedback signals from the teleoperation environment. The assisting forces can e.g. guide the operators along optimal paths and prevent collisions in the teleoperation environment. In addition to the reduction of the operator workload, teleoperation tasks also become faster and safer with haptic shared control.
This thesis investigates the implementation techniques and theory of haptic bilateral teleoperation and shared control systems. Based on the theoretical analysis, an experimental haptic shared control system, called the Computer Assisted Teleoperation (CAT) was developed. The intention of CAT is to assist the remote handling (RH) system operators of the Divertor Test Platform 2 (DTP2) in ITER remote maintenance research.
The effectiveness of CAT is evaluated in a teleoperation experiment performed with a 6 DOF Water Hydraulic MANipulator (WHMAN) developed for the ITER divertor maintenance. The results of the experiment gives directive indication that the CAT system improves the execution times of a bilateral teleoperation task and simultaneously reduces the workload perceived by the operators of the system.
Haptic shared control systems can be used for reducing the amount of mental and physical workload perceived by the operators of remote maintenance systems. To reduce the workload, a haptic shared control system assists the operators by generating virtual forces based on the virtual models of the teleoperation environment and sensor data from the slave manipulator. The generated assistance forces are laid over the force feedback signals from the teleoperation environment. The assisting forces can e.g. guide the operators along optimal paths and prevent collisions in the teleoperation environment. In addition to the reduction of the operator workload, teleoperation tasks also become faster and safer with haptic shared control.
This thesis investigates the implementation techniques and theory of haptic bilateral teleoperation and shared control systems. Based on the theoretical analysis, an experimental haptic shared control system, called the Computer Assisted Teleoperation (CAT) was developed. The intention of CAT is to assist the remote handling (RH) system operators of the Divertor Test Platform 2 (DTP2) in ITER remote maintenance research.
The effectiveness of CAT is evaluated in a teleoperation experiment performed with a 6 DOF Water Hydraulic MANipulator (WHMAN) developed for the ITER divertor maintenance. The results of the experiment gives directive indication that the CAT system improves the execution times of a bilateral teleoperation task and simultaneously reduces the workload perceived by the operators of the system.