D3.1 - Outdoors mobile manipulation demonstrator

This project set out to show that a mobile manipulator remotely controlled by a human operator could be tasked with removing dangerous items from a given area. The potential applications for a remote mobile manipulator extend beyond nuclear decommissioning tasks to any object-retrieval task at long distance.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of it's system, the team instructed a human operator to control both the mobile base and the robotic arm in various ways, using a web interface and a second robot arm acting as follower. The robot navigated autonomously through closed-loop teleoperation upon identification of the target area. Haptic-feedback teleoperation was used to retrieve items on the mobile platform. There remained the additional option of deploying an eversion robot for confined spaces.

The demo was performed while using two Franka-Emika arms and a Thorvald robot from Saga robotics, which had been extended with a custom frame for supporting one of the arms.

The objective of this demo is to show a mobile manipulator remotely controlled by a human operator to clean a specific area out of dangerous items. The human operator is located somewhere else at distance and controls both the mobile base and the robotic arm in various ways, through a web interface and a second robot arm acting as leader, respectively. In this way, space can be decontaminated without putting the operator at risk. The application can be useful not only for nuclear decommissioning tasks but for any object-retrieval task at long distance (e.g., over the network. The demo is performed while using two Franka-Emika arms and a Thorvald robot from Saga robotics, which has been extended with a custom frame for supporting one of the arms.

Upon identification of target area, the mobile platform robot can navigate there autonomously to deploy a mobile manipulator using closed-loop haptic teleoperation to retrieve an item or interact with the environment.