RoboCon: Operator Interface for Robotic and Remote Applications

摘要

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Oak Ridge National Laboratories' (ORNL) Robotics and Process Systems Division (RPSD), have developed a state-of-the-art robot operator control station, dubbed RoboCon, with standardized hardware and software control interfaces to be adaptable to a variety of remote and robotic selective equipment removal systems (SERS) currently funded by the DoE's Office of Technology Development (OTD) Robotics Technology Development Program (RTDP). The human operation and telerobotic and supervisory control of sophisticated and remote and robotic systems is a complex, tiring and non-intuitive activity. Since decontamination & decommissioning, selective equipment removal, mixed waste operations and in-tank cleanup are going to be a major future activity in Department of Energy's (DoE) environmental restoration and waste management (ER&WM) cleanup agenda, it seems necessary to utilize an operator control station and interface which maximizes operator comfort and productivity. The purpose of this system is to provide a flexible operator interface platform, allowing for cost-effective testing and deployment of varied remote & robot systems for demonstration and field-use. The benefit is to be seen in the ability to control different systems through simple interchange of interface modules on the operator's chair, and the porting/development of interface display software to a common computing and programming platform. Cost savings can be realized through this system, since it represents a powerful and flexible test platform for evaluating the various remote systems currently available or under development through the OTD program. The proposed system (see Figure 1:) consists of a large single-screen projection-TV system framed on both sides by several high-resolution TV monitors, stereo speakers, a reconfigurable operator console and control chair module with various removable interface modules (such as joysticks, buttons, touch-screen, etc.), all ergonomically mounted on a raised platform and integrated with the display and control electronics. The embedded computing consists of rack-mounted SUN, SGI and PCsystems used to operate the consoles and to house the remote system-control and interface computing. The entire system is configured to optimize the information display and operational efficiency of a human operator controlling or supervising remote systems, control the display configuration, live video links and graphical overlays and to input information using the hard-wired switches and the touch-screen display.