Development of Intuitive Operator Control Unit for Multipurpose Field Robot

Abstract

Recently, there has been a lot of interest concerning remote-control robot manipulation in hazardous operation environments including construction sites, national defense and disaster areas. However, there are problems involving the method of remote-control in unstructured work environments such as construction sites. First it is difficult to cope immediately when unexpected situation is occurred during construction works. Second there is difficult to gain environment information for operator’s sight. Consequently, it is not easy for him to grasp environmental situation working the field robot. In this study, an improved MFR system is described, which helps a human operator to easily install construction materials through an intuitive Operator Control Unit (OCU) on construction sites. The OCU consists of a force-reflecting joystick and a vision system. Force-reflecting joystick is the device transferring information on reaction forces to operator in case the robot comes in contact with the environment. For monitoring environmental situation, we installed a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) camera and a range sensor on MFR. The active compliance control and bilateral communication for strategic control is also described. The active compliance control is controlled based on the operator’s direction inputted by force-reflecting joystick of OCU and information on reaction force obtained by manipulator of MFR when it is contacting the environment. In order to evaluate the proposed OCU, the installation of construction materials is simulated. We simulated the process of installing the construction materials such as a panel. The intuitive OCU is expected to do more safe and accurate work at construction sites as well as environment like hazardous area which a human is difficult to approach. In near future, we will develop automatic driving MFR system which can avoid the obstacles and making the path automatically.