Assistive VR platform design for Telemanipulation at the Super Fragment Separator Facility

Abstract

An assisted remote manipulation (ArM) platform has been defined for the Super FragmentSeparator (Super-FRS) main tunnel and hot cell at the High Energy Physics (HEP) Facilityof Anti-proton and Ion Research (FAIR). The designed platform positioned within a VirtualReality (VR) based framework ensures dynamic collaboration and effective humaninteraction to assist with Remote Handling (RH) operations. To visually stimulate operatorassisted intervention in harsh environments, enhanced interaction based on syntheticvision has been adapted with simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) techniquesinterlinked with virtual layers representing a three dimensional manipulation of RHmaintenance tasks. The proposed platform also included a sequence mapping toolevaluated with RH task variables specific to the sequence space analyses of pathplanning, motion check, and collision detection performed in both real and virtual RH taskenvironments. Further assistance was envisaged from multimodal feedback categoriesthrough force feedback, in this case, a backpropagation algorithm was tailored to define aforce limit and to send feedback signals to the operator every time the actual patternexceeded the desired output pattern. Overall, the ArM platform ensures the application ofbest engineering practices to RH needs as a basis to maximize information gathering andsharing driven by continuous improvement initiatives.

Keywords: Assisted Remote Manipulation, Remote Handling, Synthetic Vision, Backpropagation Algorithm

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002943