Paul Dominick E. Baniqued
Multimodal immersive digital twin platform for cyber–physical robot fleets in nuclear environments
Baniqued, Paul Dominick E.; Bremner, Paul; Sandison, Melissa; Harper, Samuel; Agrawal, Subham; Bolarinwa, Joseph; Blanche, Jamie; Jiang, Zhengyi; Johnson, Thomas; Mitchell, Daniel; Jose Lopez Pulgarin, Erwin; West, Andrew; Willis, Melissa; Yao, Kanzhong; Flynn, David; Giuliani, Manuel; Groves, Keir; Lennox, Barry; Watson, Simon
Authors
Paul Bremner Paul2.Bremner@uwe.ac.uk
Associate Professor in Human Robotics Interactions
Melissa Sandison
Samuel Harper
Subham Agrawal
Joseph Bolarinwa
Jamie Blanche
Zhengyi Jiang
Thomas Johnson
Daniel Mitchell
Erwin Jose Lopez Pulgarin
Andrew West
Melissa Willis
Kanzhong Yao
David Flynn
Manuel Giuliani Manuel.Giuliani@uwe.ac.uk
Co- Director Bristol Robotics Laboratory
Keir Groves
Barry Lennox
Simon Watson
Abstract
The nuclear energy sector can benefit from mobile robots for remote inspection and handling, reducing human exposure to radiation. Advances in cyber–physical systems have improved robotic platforms in this sector through digital twin (DT) technology. DTs enhance situational awareness for robot operators, crucial for safety in the nuclear energy sector, and their value is anticipated to increase with the growing complexity of cyber–physical systems. The primary motivation of this work is to rapidly develop and evaluate a robot fleet interface that accounts for these benefits in the context of nuclear environments. Here, we introduce a multimodal immersive DT platform for cyber–physical robot fleets based on the ROS-Unity 3D framework. The system design enables fleet monitoring and management by integrating building information models, mission parameters, robot sensor data, and multimodal user interaction through traditional and virtual reality interfaces. A modified heuristic evaluation approach, which accounts for the positive and negative aspects of the interface, was introduced to accelerate the iterative design process of our DT platform. Robot operators from leading nuclear research institutions (Sellafield Ltd. and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency) performed a simulated robot inspection mission while providing valuable insights into the design elements of the cyber–physical system. The three usability themes that emerged and inspired our design recommendations for future developers include increasing the interface's flexibility, considering each robot's individuality, and adapting the platform to expand sensor visualization capabilities.
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Mar 7, 2024 |
Online Publication Date | Apr 11, 2024 |
Publication Date | Aug 1, 2024 |
Deposit Date | Sep 10, 2024 |
Publicly Available Date | Sep 10, 2024 |
Print ISSN | 1556-4959 |
Electronic ISSN | 1556-4967 |
Publisher | Wiley |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 41 |
Issue | 5 |
Pages | 1521-1540 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.22329 |
Public URL | https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11877206 |
Publisher URL | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ |
Files
Multimodal immersive digital twin platform for cyber–physical robot fleets in nuclear environments
(7.3 Mb)
PDF
Licence
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You might also like
Bio-inspired knee joint: Trends in the hardware systems development
(2021)
Journal Article
A robotic test rig for performance assessment of prosthetic joints
(2022)
Journal Article
Lessons learned: Symbiotic autonomous robot ecosystem for nuclear environments
(2023)
Journal Article
Physiological data measurement in digital manufacturing
(2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
A de-risked bio-inspired condylar prosthetic knee joint for a robotic leg test rig
(2020)
Presentation / Conference Contribution