Towards advanced robotic manipulation for nuclear decommissioning: A pilot study on tele-operation and autonomy

Naresh Marturi, Alireza Rastegarpanah, Chie Takahashi, Maxime Adjigble, Rustam Stolkin, Sebastian Zurek, Marek Kopicki, Mohammed Talha, Jeffrey A. Kuo, Yasemin Bekiroglu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

26 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We present early pilot-studies of a new international project, developing advanced robotics to handle nuclear waste. Despite enormous remote handling requirements, there has been remarkably little use of robots by the nuclear industry. The few robots deployed have been directly teleoperated in rudimentary ways, with no advanced control methods or autonomy. Most remote handling is still done by an aging workforce of highly skilled experts, using 1960s style mechanical Master-Slave devices. In contrast, this paper explores how novice human operators can rapidly learn to control modern robots to perform basic manipulation tasks; also how autonomous robotics techniques can be used for operator assistance, to increase throughput rates, decrease errors, and enhance safety. We compare humans directly teleoperating a robot arm, against human-supervised semi-Autonomous control exploiting computer vision, visual servoing and autonomous grasping algorithms. We show how novice operators rapidly improve their performance with training; suggest how training needs might scale with task complexity; and demonstrate how advanced autonomous robotics techniques can help human operators improve their overall task performance. An additional contribution of this paper is to show how rigorous experimental and analytical methods from human factors research, can be applied to perform principled scientific evaluations of human test-subjects controlling robots to perform practical manipulative tasks.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2016 International Conference on Robotics and Automation for Humanitarian Applications (RAHA)
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-5090-5203-5
ISBN (Print)978-1-5090-5204-2 (PoD)
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 May 2017
Event1st International Conference on Robotics and Automation for Humanitarian Applications, RAHA 2016 - Kerala, India
Duration: 18 Dec 201620 Dec 2016

Conference

Conference1st International Conference on Robotics and Automation for Humanitarian Applications, RAHA 2016
Country/TerritoryIndia
CityKerala
Period18/12/1620/12/16

Keywords

  • Service robots
  • Grippers
  • Robot kinematics
  • Radioactive pollution
  • Grasping
  • Stacking

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Control and Optimization
  • Human Factors and Ergonomics
  • Sociology and Political Science

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