Effect of force feedback on a bulldozer-type robot
Utilizing remote-controlled robots in damage restoration activities in disaster-affected areas such as those affected by a debris avalanche or an earthquake has significantly increased. Various types of remote-controlled robots have been successfully used along with construction machines in damage restoration activities in disaster-affected areas. Recently, a bulldozer-type robot removed the earth and sand deposited over a wide area because of a debris avalanche. To enable prompt damage restoration activities in disaster-affected areas, an efficient remote operation using robots is required. We study a remote-controlled bulldozer-type robot that moves objects using a system wherein the status of the stress applied on the bulldozer blade is provided as a force feedback to the operator. After conducting evaluation experiments, we could verify that the operating system providing force feedback to the operator shortened the operation time compared with the one that displayed visual information only on the operating screen.
Complete coverage path planning and performance factor analysis for autonomous bulldozer
With the development of intelligent machinery, path planning of autonomous bulldozers plays an important role to solve the problems of efficiency in future construction sites. How to plan the path that meets the construction requirements is the key problem. This study investigates the standardized construction workmanship and moving rules of the bulldozer to add rules and path selection strategies to the algorithm. This study establishes the path planning model of bulldozer's leveling, considering the limitations of the traditional bioinspired neural network algorithm, an improved complete coverage path planning method is proposed. An integrated framework is proposed for an automatic bulldozer with a sensor system for a field experiment to verify the feasibility of the method. According to the comparative statistical simulation results, the effectiveness of the method is verified, and the effects of different factors on the path planning results are analyzed.
A research on tele-operation using virtual reality
Nowadays an idea of tele-existence or tele-presence that is based on the virtual reality technology has been proposed and is expected to be very effective for performing tasks in hazardous environments, such as a nuclear power plant. In our research we study the fundamental technique of tele-operation using virtual reality technology to manipulate the robot-arm in the nuclear power plant. This paper discusses quantitative evaluation of the properties of human in virtual space, i.e., the aggravation of the operability of the robot-arm manipulation system caused by the time lag in manipulating it, and the accuracy of stereoscopic viewing in virtual space.