Telemanipulators: History and Current Utility

Telemanipulators: History and current utility

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Telemanipulators

History and current utility

Joel Gil Valencia

Department of Electronic Engineering, Technological Institute of Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico

Delivered 03 December 2016

History

The most direct progenitors with the current robots are the telemanipulators, instruments invented for the purpose of operating radioactive elements without risks to the operator, the first telemanipulator was created in 1948 by R.C Goertz of the Argonne National Laboratory, This was a fully mechanical device, this manipulator had a master-slave operation, The master manipulator was placed in a safe area where it was operated by a manipulator whereas the slave in the dangerous zone faithfully recreated the movements of the operator.

Then in 1954 and with increasing electronic technology, Goertz made use of it in a telemanipulator with bilateral servo control. Another pioneer in the area of telemanipulation was Ralph Mosher, a General Electric engineer who in 1958 created a "Handy-Man", which consisted of two arms teleoperated by a master named exoskeleton. Thanks to the advances the industries: nuclear, submarine and space, took interest of the telemanipulators.

The telemanipulators had a great boom in the seventies, but its evolution with regard to robots has not been so exponential. And they have been limited to certain fields as: nuclear, military, space, etc.

The reason why the telemanipulators were not so successful over time was their need to have an operator in charge [Barrientos, et al., 1998].

Over time, telemanipulators have found fields in which to perform, such as the submarine field, and the aerospace, being increasingly sophisticated and complex.

The implementation of cameras and sensors increased operator telepresence, the implementation of new systems of communication between master and slave, such as radiofrequency, the internet and fiber optics has managed to break with the limitations in the distance between them, the development of robotic field has achieved great advances in the efficiency of systems, such as the transition from mechanical to electrical systems, allowing the slave to be able to manipulate elements with greater precision and power.

The first sector where the telemanipulators were used was in the nuclear industry, however, over time the telemanipulators found different fields of application.

Applications in space

Remote handling is particularly useful in aerospace applications, some of the reasons being: [Sheridan, 93]

1. Security: All space operations are high risk, which can be the cause of death for astronauts.

1. Cost: The equipment required for human passengers is much more expensive and heavy than an operating system.

1. Time: There are many missions that last for many years to achieve their goals, which makes these missions without human crew.

Among its main applications are: experimentation and planetary exploration, maintenance and operation of satellites, construction and maintenance of space stations.

The first teleoperated vehicle on the moon was Lunokhod 1, this vehicle was launched in the seventies, traveling ten kilometers in eleven days of mission. The problem with this type of application is that the teleoperation systems experience great delays in their telecommunications systems, although from here to the moon the delay is only a few seconds, closed loop control systems become unstable, in this case used the "move and wait".

Application in the nuclear industry

The main utility lies in the need to manipulate radioactive substances, as well as to move through contaminated environments, without danger to the human being.

Among its main applications are: manipulation and experiments with radioactive substances, operation and maintenance of facilities, dismantling and decontamination of facilities, and finally action in nuclear disasters.

Subsea Applications

In this case the majority of the manipulators of an underwater vehicle, denominated R.O.V. (Remote Operated Vehicle), which is also teleoperated. The utility of these systems lies in being able to access certain areas and depths where it is impossible or dangerous to a diver.

Among its main applications are: inspection, maintenance and construction of submarine facilities, submarine mining, and marine floor inspection.

The data transmission can be acoustic, also the transmission of data can be by means of a cable as it is the case of VICTOR French system of submarine exploration, but this makes things more difficult because the weight of the cable affects the kinematics of the teleoperated vehicle.

Military applications

This area provides many possibilities for teleoperated systems, most of the mobile teleoperation technologies were developed for military applications, the technologies used here range from remote monitoring systems to the use of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs), An example of this type of vehicle is the US Air Force Predator [Alcázar, 03].

This type of vehicle has a very large field of application, surveillance, acquisition of military objectives, detection of enemies, reconnaissance, among others, the first systems of this type had a closed loop of control, the operator closed the loop, nowadays Thanks to new technologies such as GPS (Global Positioning System) and supervised control vehicles become increasingly intelligent.

Another area of vehicles of this type are terrestrial called UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle), endowed with different technologies, like stereovision also the communication systems are very wide and fast thanks to the use of radio frequencies, an example of vehicles of this type Is SARGE (Surveillance And Reconnaissance Ground Equipment) created

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