TWINBOT
TWIN roBOTs for cooperative underwater intervention missions
TWIN roBOTs for cooperative underwater intervention missions
The IRS Lab, from UJI (subproject 1), has been demonstrating a well-known experience working in robotic manipulation, from a very spread point of view, since 1996. This research includes multi- sensory based control, learning, multipurpose autonomous manipulation, and multimodal interfaces for telemanipulation techniques, among others. Some previous national (DPI2004-01920; DPI2001-3801) and international projects (GUARDIANS-IST-045269, GRASP-ICT-215821) guarantee the potential research in these areas of expertise. Concerning the context of this proposal about underwater manipulation and HRI, it is noticeable that the UJI team has coordinated four previous projects since 2009, three national ones (RAUVI, TRITON and MERBOTS) and another one supported by the EC (TRIDENT-ICT-248497). Moreover, during the previous project MERBOTS, a new research line was started dealing with the underwater wireless communication problem. It is worth mentioning that the other two groups, UdG and UIB, have also been partners in all the projects, since 2009, above mentioned, thus guaranteeing an excellent rapport between the three teams. On the other hand, the UJI team has also current projects cooperating with industrial companies, dealing with robot manipulation, and radio frequency protocols for remote control of irrigation facilities. Another important cooperation agreement is running with the CERN Robotics group for bi-manual telerobotics interventions in hazardous environments. Other cooperation activities include educational robotics with some institutions. In summary, different issues related to the physical interaction capabilities, including cooperative mobile manipulation aspects, and dealing with intervention tasks, HRI and wireless communication aspects, addressed in this proposal, will be under responsibility of this group.
The UJI subproject will focus on the design and the development of a new fully electrical 6DoF arm and a new gripper (O1.2) for underwater manipulation. The modular arm and gripper systems developed for TWINBOT will be sensorized with a force-torque (O7.1), tactile sensors (O7.2), eye in hand and laser in order to assist the cooperative manipulation actions, where the team is also cooperating (O5.1, O5.2). A grasp characterization (O7.3) based on object identification (O4) will also be conducted within the framework of this subproject. The UJI team will take advantage of the expertise acquired in the development of the Lightweight ARM 5E in the RAUVI project, currently commercialized by CSIP, which was also used in the TRIDENT, TRITON and MERBOTS projects. A complete communication stack, specific for underwater environments will also be implemented in this subproject. The benefits of acoustic (O3.1), RF (O3.2) and VLC (O3.3) physical layers will be combined into a multimodal communication system (O3). Adaptive bit rate image compression algorithms and BTP transport protocol will be considered in order to achieve a reliable and low delay communication making the most of the low-bandwidth channel available in underwater environments (O3.4). The UJI team will be responsible of all the aspects related to the mission specification by the user and simulation, integrated both through the HRI module. UJI is also involved in the experimental validation of the cooperative mobile manipulation (O8) to reach the final Milestones: Cooperative transportation (M3) and Cooperative assembly (M4).
Design & Implement a 6 DOF electric arm and a multisensory grasping device
Cooperative mobile manipulation
Multimodal Human Robot Interface (HRI)
Wireless communications (RF)
