Ján Babjak

Control System of the Mobile Robot TELERESCUER

This paper describes a Main control system of the mobile robot TELERESCUER for inspecting coal mine areas affected by catastrophic events. Carried out in a framework of a EU programme of the Research Fund for Coal and Steel under the grant agreement No. RFCR-CT-2014-00002. The main problem is to applicate the very demanding safe requirements of ATEX on the design of the control system including its communication with other robot subsystems. The solving of this problem is presented in this paper.

The Design of 3D Laser Range Finder for Robot Navigation and Mapping in Industrial Environment with Point Clouds Preprocessing

This article describes the design of 3D Laser range finder LRF for industrial and mine environment. The 3D LRF is designed for usage on middle size robots and can be used for environment mapping and navigation. The design reflects heavy and dirty working conditions in industrial environment and it is equipped by own methane sensor for usage in mine. The process of design started with definition of requirements, follows by dynamic analysis and selection of suitable parts. The housing is designed from stainless steel and it encloses all electrical and mechanical components. The internal control unit is designed to suit modern trends of fog computing. It is equipped with four cores ARM CPU and IMU and it is able to preprocess the acquired point clouds in real time.

Exploration Mobile Robot for Coal Mines

This paper describes a Main Control System (MCS) and 3D map subsystem of the mobile robot TELERESCUER for inspecting coal mine areas affected by catastrophic events. It is carried out in a framework of a EU programme of the Research Fund for Coal and Steel under the grant agreement No. RFCR-CT-2014-00002. The interesting problem is to applicate the very demanding safe requirements of ATEX on the design of the control system including its communication with other robot subsystems. Due to a very innovative and advanced HMI the system allows the rescuer to operate the robot as if he were at the very center point of the scene of the robot’s operation.6 This project is solved by consortium of: Silesian University of Technology (Poland), VSB – Technical University of Ostrava (Czech Republic), AITEMIN (Spain), SIMMERSION GMBH (Austria) and SKYTECH RESEARCH (Poland).

Virtual Operator Station for Teleoperated Mobile Robots

This paper deals with utilization of a head-mounted display (HMD) for remote control of mobile robots by a human operator. The main goal is to make control of the robot and navigation in unknown terrain easier for the operator by providing stereoscopic images and using virtual reality. Considered is specifically the new HMD device called Oculus Rift, which is a very interesting device because of its great parameters and low price. The device is described in the beginning, together with some of the specific principles of the Oculus 3D display. Then follows the design of a new graphical user interface for teleoperation – virtual operator station, with main focus on visualization of stereoscopic images from robot cameras. Demonstrated is also a way how to display additional data and information to the operator. The resulting interface is a comfortable and highly effective system suitable both for exploration and manipulation tasks in mobile robotics.

System for automatic collisions prevention for a manipulator arm of a mobile robot

Control systems of mobile robots controlled remotely by a human operator using only limited visual feedback from camera subsystem can aid the operator in various ways. This paper deals with automatic collision detection for manipulator arm mounted on a mobile robot - the goal of the system is to prevent any possible collisions between the arm and the robot or the arm itself. Implementation of the system uses the separating axis algorithm on pairs of oriented bounding boxes enveloping mechanical components of the robot. Practical testing of the whole control system was done on two existing mobile robots.

Rendering of 3D Maps with Additional Information for Operator of a Coal Mine Mobile Robot

The paper focuses on visualization of point clouds made by a 3D scanner mounted on a mobile robot Telerescuer designed for reconnaissance of coal mines affected by a disaster. Briefly are described some algorithms used for point cloud pre-processing – voxelization for data reduction, outliers removing for filtering of erroneous data and smoothing for additional filtering of noise data. These algorithms are implemented in C++ using the Point Cloud Library.

Mobile Robot Failure Prevention by Real-Time Thermal Monitoring

The paper deals with improving the reliability of mechanical components of the mobile robot Telerescuer. This improvement is realised by monitoring thermal parameters of some selected critical points of gearboxes and drives using the principles of IoT (Internet of Things) and by transferring all measured values to the ThinksWorx servers. On-line monitoring of the locomotion subsystem with prediction and prevention of a possible mechanical failure is secured by analyses of the data. The data is also used for visualisation directly on the operator station at a model of the robot in a 3D CAD system.

Verification of electronic device technology for measurement and evaluation of thermal exposure of fire fighters and members of rescue teams

BACKGROUND The work of members of rescue teams could be associated with very high physical and thermal loads. If not timely interrupted, any extreme labour-thermal load may lead to a failure of the body and fatal collapse. This risk may be significantly reduced by devices that monitor the response of the body during the intervention and inform rescuers about the need to interrupt the exposure when the critical value of the reference indicator is achieved. The aim of the study was to test the correlation between the data of the newly developed device for signaling the strain of rescuers and the indicators of physiological response of the body. MATERIAL AND METHODS The tests were performed on 2 physically fit fire fighters dressed in a protective rescue suit and using insulating breathing apparatus, over a wide range of heat load under a model load on a bicycle ergometer in a climatic chamber. RESULTS The study provided a significant correlation between the body temperature measured in the ear canal and the temperature under the suit sensed by the tested device - the Safety Ambient Monitor (SAM) (R = 0.9007). The temperature under the suit also correlated with the temperature of the chest skin (R = 0.8928) and heart rate (R = 0.8613). CONCLUSIONS A statistically significant correlation was proven between the temperature sensed by the SAM and the body temperature. The technical solution of sensing the temperature under the suit using the verified SAM technology does not affect or limit fire fighters in their work and minimizes the possibility of damage to the sensor and signaling failures. Med Pr 2018;69(1):1-11.

Application of Augmented Reality in Mobile Robot Teleoperation

The paper deals with the utilisation of augmented reality on the operator control panel of a teleoperated mobile robot. The work is a continuation of the previous research, which resulted in the creation and successful practical implementation of a virtual operator station based on the virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD) Oculus Rift. The new approach suggests using the new Microsoft Hololens augmented reality headset to add the virtual control elements directly to the real world, which has some very important benefits – especially the fact that the operator is not visually isolated from his surroundings. The device is introduced in the beginning of the article and then follows the description of all tasks required to create the augmented reality operator station. Mentioned are also other possible ways of using augmented reality to assist the operator of a mobile robot.

Safety ambient monitor for firefighters

This paper describes the concept of the portable system for monitoring thermal exposure of firemen and other rescues. The system measures, archives and analyses actual external and internal temperatures affecting the monitored person and gives him a warning in case of dangerously increased values. Described is the construction and electrical components of the device, some important tests done in various conditions and also the system for parameter customization.