TY - JOUR
T1 - A prototype telerobotic platform for live transmission line maintenance
T2 - Review of design and development
AU - Banthia, Vikram
AU - Maddahi, Yaser
AU - Zareinia, Kourosh
AU - Liao, Stephen
AU - Olson, Tim
AU - Fung, Wai Keung
AU - Balakrishnan, Subramaniam
AU - Sepehri, Nariman
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2017.
PY - 2017/2/8
Y1 - 2017/2/8
N2 - This paper reports technical design of a novel experimental test facility, using haptic-enabled teleoperation of robotic manipulators, for live transmission line maintenance. The goal is to study and develop appropriate techniques in repair overhead power transmission lines by allowing linemen to wirelessly guide a remote manipulator, installed on a crane bucket, to execute dexterous maintenance tasks, such as twisting a tie wire around a cable. Challenges and solutions for developing such a system are outlined. The test facility consists of a PHANToM Desktop haptic device (master site), an industrial hydraulic manipulator (slave site) mounted atop a Stewart platform, and a wireless communication channel connecting the master and slave sites. The teleoperated system is tested under different force feedback schemes, while the base is excited and the communication channel is delayed and/or lossy to emulate realistic network behaviors. The force feedback schemes are: virtual fixture, augmentation force and augmented virtual fixture. Performance of each scheme is evaluated under three measures: task completion time, number of failed trials and displacement of the slave manipulator end-effector. The developed test rig has been shown to be successful in performing haptic-enabled teleoperation for live-line maintenance in a laboratory setting. The authors aim at establishing a benchmark test facility for objective evaluation of ideas and concepts in the teleoperation of live-line maintenance tasks.
AB - This paper reports technical design of a novel experimental test facility, using haptic-enabled teleoperation of robotic manipulators, for live transmission line maintenance. The goal is to study and develop appropriate techniques in repair overhead power transmission lines by allowing linemen to wirelessly guide a remote manipulator, installed on a crane bucket, to execute dexterous maintenance tasks, such as twisting a tie wire around a cable. Challenges and solutions for developing such a system are outlined. The test facility consists of a PHANToM Desktop haptic device (master site), an industrial hydraulic manipulator (slave site) mounted atop a Stewart platform, and a wireless communication channel connecting the master and slave sites. The teleoperated system is tested under different force feedback schemes, while the base is excited and the communication channel is delayed and/or lossy to emulate realistic network behaviors. The force feedback schemes are: virtual fixture, augmentation force and augmented virtual fixture. Performance of each scheme is evaluated under three measures: task completion time, number of failed trials and displacement of the slave manipulator end-effector. The developed test rig has been shown to be successful in performing haptic-enabled teleoperation for live-line maintenance in a laboratory setting. The authors aim at establishing a benchmark test facility for objective evaluation of ideas and concepts in the teleoperation of live-line maintenance tasks.
KW - Stewart platform
KW - Teleoperation
KW - haptics
KW - hydraulic manipulators
KW - live-line maintenance
KW - virtual fixture
KW - wireless channels
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045238702&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0142331216687021
DO - 10.1177/0142331216687021
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045238702
SN - 0142-3312
VL - 40
SP - 3273
EP - 3292
JO - Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control
JF - Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control
IS - 11
ER -