Government & Industrial
\ Research
\
Human-Robot Interaction
—
Health Monitoring and Vehicle Self-Diagnosis for iRobot PackBot EOD
research - Human-Robot Interaction Health Monitoring and Vehicle Self-Diagnosis for iRobot PackBot EOD
- The Need:
- The Board on Army Science and Technology has identified health monitoring and self-diagnostics as a key supporting technology in the Army's unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) program. A system capable of monitoring the operating parameters of a small UGV and detecting faults as they occur, coupled with model-based recovery behaviors, will greatly enhance the mission readiness of critical robot assets. The system will also increase mission effectiveness and the security of military personnel operating the robots. Streamlining preventive and restorative maintenance and logistics processes will also result in significant cost savings. Implementation of a simple “trouble light” alert system for the operator, indicating a possible malfunction or degraded performance, could prevent mission failure of a robot that has suffered undetected damage from shock or overheating, for example. This capability does not exist on any currently-fielded production robot.
- The
Project: - iRobot and the Applied Research Laboratory of Pennsylvania State University are jointly developing a prototype health monitoring and self-diagnostic capability for small unmanned ground vehicles. Based on feedback from operators, trainers and maintainers, iRobot and Penn State are initiating methodical study and experimentation to design and implement a health monitoring capability for autonomous systems consisting of on-board instrumentation, data collection, filtering and transport protocols and an operator control unit status display. The project team is assessing existing sensors and analyzing their utility in modeling and simulating critical system failure indicators.
- The
Goals: -
- Develop a predictive mission support and maintenance capability to support military as well as civil homeland security, EOD and bomb disposal communities.
- Enhance the mission readiness of critical robot assets and the mission effectiveness and security of the robot operators.
- Streamline preventive and restorative maintenance and logistics processes to realize significant cost savings.
UGV Support & Maintenance
Detecting faults as they occur, coupled with model-based recovery behaviors, greatly enhances the mission readiness of critical robot assets and the mission effectiveness and security of the personnel operating them.
Detecting faults as they occur, coupled with model-based recovery behaviors, greatly enhances the mission readiness of critical robot assets and the mission effectiveness and security of the personnel operating them.
