The application of NASREM to remote robot control

The implementation of a remote robot controller, wherein the distance to the remote robot causes significant communication time delays is described. The NASREM telrobot control architecture is used as a basis for the implementation of the system. Levels 1 through 4 of the hierarchy were implemented. The solution to the problems encounterd during the implementation and those which are unique to remote robot control are described

The Development of an Open Hardware and Software System Onboard Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Monitor Concentrated Solar Power Plants

Concentrated solar power (CSP) plants are increasingly gaining interest as a source of renewable energy. These plants face several technical problems and the inspection of components such as absorber tubes in parabolic trough concentrators (PTC), which are widely deployed, is necessary to guarantee plant efficiency. This article presents a system for real-time industrial inspection of CSP plants using low-cost, open-source components in conjunction with a thermographic sensor and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The system, available in open-source hardware and software, is designed to be employed independently of the type of device used for inspection (laptop, smartphone, tablet or smartglasses) and its operating system. Several UAV flight missions were programmed as follows: flight altitudes at 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 m above ground level; and three cruising speeds: 5, 7 and 10 m/s. These settings were chosen and analyzed in order to optimize inspection time. The results indicate that it is possible to perform inspections by an UAV in real time at CSP plants as a means of detecting anomalous absorber tubes and improving the effectiveness of methodologies currently being utilized. Moreover, aside from thermographic sensors, this contribution can be applied to other sensors and can be used in a broad range of applications where real-time georeferenced data visualization is necessary

Telerobotics : methodology for the development of a through-the-internet robotic teleoperated system

This work presents a methodology for the development of Teleoperated Robotic Systems through the Internet. Initially, it is presented a bibliographical review of the Telerobotic systems that uses Internet as way of control. The methodology is implemented and tested through the development of two systems. The first is a manipulator with two degrees of freedom commanded remotely through the Internet denominated RobWebCam (http://www.graco.unb.br/robwebcam). The second is a system which teleoperates an ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) Industrial Robot of six degrees of freedom denominated RobWebLink (http://webrobot.graco.unb.br). RobWebCam is composed of a manipulator with two degrees of freedom, a video camera, Internet, computers and communication driver between the manipulator and the Unix system; and RobWebLink composed of the same components plus the Industrial Robot. With the use of this technology, it is possible to move far distant positioning objects minimizing transport costs, materials and people; acting in real time in the process that is wanted to be controller. This work demonstrates that the teleoperating via Internet of robotic systems and other equipments is viable, in spite of using rate transmission data with low bandwidth. Possible applications include remote surveillance, control and remote diagnosis and maintenance of machines and equipments

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Fundamentals of Wireless Communication Link Design for Networked Robotics

This chapter aims to present the fundamentals of the design of wireless communication links for networked robotics applications. First, we provide an overview of networked robotics applications, motivating the importance of the wireless communication link as an enabler of these applications. Next, we review the wireless communication technologies available today, discussing the existent tradeoffs between range, power, and data rate, and introducing the main concepts regarding the design of wireless communication links. Finally, we present a design example of a wireless communication link and the results obtained. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of the results and the challenges faced in the design of wireless communication links for networked robotics