A universal bilateral manual controller utilizing a unique parallel architecture

Abstract

Since 1987, the Advanced Technology Division of the US Department of Energy has sponsored a team composed of four universities and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to pursue research leading to the development and deployment of an advanced robotic system. The tasks to be performed by this system will be those tasks that are hazardous to humans, that generate significant occupational radiation exposure, and those which can be performed more rapidly and more accurately by an automated system. An essential component of the program plan is the annual technology demonstration performed at the Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research (CESAR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The scenario selected for the 1989 technology demonstration involved the cleanup of a spill of a simulated hazardous material. The demonstration utilized the seven-degrees-of-freedom CESARm manipulator, which is mounted aboard the HERMIES III transporter. The transporter traveled to the site of the simulated spill through an obstacle-strewn environment both under direct human control and autonomously, navigating by reference to the computer-stored world model. After arriving at the site of the spill, the vision system scanned and located the spill, thus determining its position in local and global coordinate frames. This information was used to generate amore » manipulator sweep pattern that resulted in the removal of the spilled material by a vacuum device.« less