Authors:
David Forkel
1
;
2
;
Pejman Habibiroudkenar
1
;
3
;
Enric Cervera
2
;
Raúl Mari´n-Prades
2
;
Lucas Comte
1
;
Eloise Matheson
1
;
Christopher McGreavy
1
;
Luca Buonocore
1
;
Josep Mari´n-Garcés
1
and
Mario Di Castro
1
Affiliations:
1
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Meyrin, Switzerland
;
2
Jaume I University, Castellón de la Plana, Spain
;
3
Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
Keyword(s):
Mobile Robotics, Wireless Communication, 3D Fusion, Human-Robot Interaction.
Abstract:
The CHARMBot robot performs remote inspections in CERN’s CHARM facility, with its operations currently managed through teleoperation. This study investigates the challenges and potential solutions to enhance CHARMBot’s autonomy, focusing on network performance, 3D perception, and the graphical user interface (GUI). The communication network can experience constraints, as demonstrated in Experiment 1, which highlights the latency in transmitting compressed images to the operator at the control station. Under certain conditions, this latency can significantly impact manual control, leading to TCP buffer congestion and displaying images to the user with a delay of up to 10 seconds, depending on the network congestion, requested resolution and compression rate. To improve user interaction and environmental perception, CHARMBot needs to be equipped with advanced sensors such as 3D LiDAR and stereo camera. Enhancing the robot’s autonomy is crucial for safe interventions, allowing the remot
e operator to interact with the robot via a supervised interface. The experiments characterize the network’s performance in transmitting compressed images and propose a ”lightweight” visualization mode. Preliminary experiments on 3D perception using LiDAR and stereo camera and mesh creation of the environment are discussed. Future work will focus on better integration of these components and conducting a proof-of-concept experiment to demonstrate the system’s safety.
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