Telepresence for mobile robots in nuclear environments

A growing concern with the rapid advances in technology is robotic systems will become so complex that operators will be overwhelmed by the complexity and number of controls. Thus, there is a need within the remote and teleoperated robotic field for better man-machine interfaces. Telepresence attempts to bring real world senses to the operator, especially where the scale and orientation of the robot is so different from the scale of a human operator. This paper will report on research performed at the INEL which identified and evaluated current developments in telepresence best suited for nuclear applications by surveying of national laboratories, universities, and evaluation of commercial products available in industry. The resulting telepresence system, VirtualwindoW, attempts to minimize the complexity of robot controls and to give the operator the ''feel'' of the environment without actually contacting items in the environment. The authors of this report recommend that a prolonged use study be conducted on the VirtualwindoW to determine and bench mark the length of time users can be safely exposed to this technology In addition, it is proposed that a stand alone system be developed which combines the existing multi-computer platform into a single processor telepresence platform. The stand alone system would provide a standard camera interface and allow the VirtualwindoW to be ported to other telerobotic systems.