Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 49 (2018) 143–151

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Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rcim

Design and development of an Inspection Robotic System for indoor

applications
Pierluigi Rea, Erika Ottaviano∗
DICeM - Dept. of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, via Di Biasio 43 03043 Cassino (FR), Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: The inspection and monitoring of industrial sites, structures, and infrastructure are important issues for their
Hybrid leg-wheel locomotion sustainability and further maintenance. Although these tasks are repetitive and time consuming, and some of
Inspection these environments may be characterized by dust, humidity, or absence of natural light, classical approach relies
Interoperability
on large human activities. Automatic or robotic solutions can be considered useful tools for inspection because
Low-cost monitoring
they can be effective in exploring dangerous or inaccessible sites, at relatively low-cost and reducing the time
Experimental tests
required for the relief. The development of a paradigmatic system called Inspection Robotic System (IRS) is the
main objective of this paper to demonstrate the feasibility of mechatronic solutions for inspection of industrial
sites. The development of such systems will be exploited in the form of a tool kit to be flexible and installed on a
mobile system, in order to be used for inspection and monitoring, possibly introducing high efficiency, quality and
repetitiveness in the related sector. The interoperability of sensors with wireless communication may form a smart
sensors tool kit and a smart sensor network with powerful functions to be effectively used for inspection purposes.
Moreover, it may constitute a solution for a broad range of scenarios spacing from industrial sites, brownfields,
historical sites or sites dangerous or difficult to access by operators. First experimental tests are reported to show
the engineering feasibility of the system and interoperability of the mobile hybrid robot equipped with sensors
that allow real-time multiple acquisition and storage.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction analysis, by using cameras, ultrasonic sensors, laser sensors, or even be-
ing able to perform cleaning or maintenance [7].
Inspection, assessment, and maintenance of the industrial sites and Robots were designed and used for search & rescue and plane-
existing civil structures and infrastructure are current trends, includ- tary exploration, as reported in [8–11]. Service robots can be used to
ing large-scale constructs such as plants, tunnels, bridges, roads and autonomously execute guided inspection tasks in extensive industrial
pipelines. Robots and automatic systems can perform the inspection pro- plants. If the equipment is arranged horizontally ground robots can be
cess with objective results and high efficiency for those time consuming used, as reported in [12,13], in the case of vessels climbing robots are
and repetitive tasks. They can also improve safety by performing in- used [14].
spection in dangerous or unsafe environments instead of the operators. Mobile robots have become a relevant research topic in recent
Therefore, manual and (human) visual inspections are being replaced decades and many researchers focus on the development of mobile
with more precise methods using mechanical, electronic and robotic robots, which are capable of performing tasks such as military opera-
systems. In addition, data provided by suitable sensors such as images, tion, security monitoring, exploration, even in dangerous environment.
thermal images, laser can be combined with wireless communication In such situations, robots are mostly working in unstructured environ-
and sensor network to constitute a powerful tool for inspection of in- ments, which means that the information of the environment where the
dustrial sites. robot works is unknown. Therefore, in this case the obstacle avoidance
Robotics has been recently applied to tunnel inspection. In fact, tun- is the most important feature for a mobile robot and that is why most
nels (water supply, metro, railway, road) have increased in both total researchers focus on the study of the robot with good terrain adaptabil-
length and number, and will continue to do so. Robotic solutions were ity. Moreover, such characteristic makes the robot robust and capable
developed and used for inspection of tunnels [1–3] and pipes [4–6], to carry in a stable way suitable instrumentation for the given task. Re-
involving visual inspections along with mapping, crack or deformation cently, due to the catastrophic events of the earthquakes in center of
Italy in 2009 and 2016, the inspection task is the most common and

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: rea@unicas.it (P. Rea), ottaviano@unicas.it (E. Ottaviano).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rcim.2017.06.005
Received 21 February 2017; Received in revised form 13 May 2017; Accepted 27 June 2017
0736-5845/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
P. Rea, E. Ottaviano Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 49 (2018) 143–151

requested activity that a mobile robot has to perform in unstructured 2.1. Task requirements
environment, in unsafe and non-planned events.
Mobile robots are classified as belonging to either legged, or The tasks need to accomplish some basic requirements in terms of
wheeled/tracked, or hybrid mobile systems [15] according to their loco- capabilities, such as mobility, sensorization, communication, and hard-
motion systems. Wheeled systems are the most efficient, energy saving ware and software reliability. Those issues are detailed in the following
and reliable solutions for both ground and climbing mobility, in the lat- for the inspection tasks both in industrial and non-structured environ-
ter case the actuation system can be of magnetic or pneumatic type to ments.
provide adhesion to the wall to climb. Wheeled robots mainly get the
best performances in terms of robust motion on flat surfaces, but they are 2.1.1. Mobility issue
almost ineffective in overpassing obstacles or on uneven terrain. Tracked Urban search & rescue, indoor inspections in industrial environment
systems can partially solve the problem, but they cannot overpass ob- and outdoor inspections due to planned or catastrophic events, and mil-
stacles greater than the track high. Theoretically, legged robots are the itary intelligence have one need in common, the need of a small sized
solution to all the above-mentioned problems [16], but they have to deal mobile robot that can travel across a large variety of scenarios. Some of
with important issues related to energy consumption, stability and loco- these indoor or outdoor areas to access are not only difficult to reach,
motion speed, either if the robot has two, four, six or more legs [17,18]. but may present also safety and health hazards to human inspectors.
Hybrid mobile robots move thanks to the combined action of wheels (or Therefore, the development of robots with high mobility and compact
tracks) and legs. Examples of such systems are [19–24]. There are four design is a priority to cope with these scenarios. Desired capabilities for
possible combinations of locomotion types that lead to hybrid systems, such robots are: 1) the ability to traverse uneven terrain, slopes, steps,
namely legs-wheels, legs-tracks, wheels-tracks, and legs-wheels-tracks. both indoor, in the worst conditions with obstacles such as concrete
The three main categories and the four hybrid categories of ground mo- floors cluttered with debris, unfinished floors such as those found on
bile robots are described in [25]. Another classification deals with the constructions sites, or obstacles to surpass or circumnavigate, or out-
combination of locomotion types, i.e. in series or in parallel. In the first door in the presence of rugged terrain with stones or plants. Another
type legs (or sub-tracks) provide traction or obstacle avoidance and act ability is 2) to fit either through small openings, or overpass wide gaps;
in parallel to wheels. In the second type, legs and wheels are coupled 3) the ability to climb up and over vertical steps or overpass obstacles;
in series to operate together. The first type is chosen as design solution 4) the ability to travel inside and outside of horizontal, vertical, or diag-
for a large number of prototypes and it is used in this context for the onal pipes such as electric conduits or water pipes. Those high varieties
proposed system. of areas and circumstances make the mobility issue a prior requirement
Interesting devices have been developed for automatic inspection; for such type of mobile robots application. Therefore, the robotic mo-
systems are equipped with sensors allowing them the exploration of a bile structure has to fulfill the requested mobility issues according to the
building in total autonomy, as reported in [26]. In most of cases the sen- scenario and the task.
sor suite is devoted to SLAM, automatic path following, obstacle detec-
tion and avoidance. Our aim is to test low-cost technologies to monitor 2.1.2. Sensorization
and manage sites of interest, trying to significantly reduce the acquisi- Sensors suite for mobile robots can be classified in two types, namely
tion and maintenance costs and the time needed to the relief. internal/navigation sensors and external/application sensors. The inter-
In addition, inspection and monitoring systems are only apparently nal ones give the robot mobility control and navigation capabilities.
tools easy to use and manage, in fact, they hide drawbacks such as high They may include such devices that allow the robot to be commanded
purchase and maintenance costs as well as significant financial commit- and controlled, i.e. activate and control the motors, and equipment for
ment related to data management and processing. Those factors greatly localization, obstacle detection, position estimation and goal tracking.
influence the wide spreading of those systems, which use is usually lim- These sensors are encoders, proximity sensors, GPS, accelerometers, gy-
ited to high relevance applications, such as military, or in case of disas- roscopes, magnetic compasses, tilt and shock sensors. External sensor
ters like at Fukuhima nuclear plant in 2011 [20]. suite is related to the specific task, if the inspection/surveillance/search
In order to enhance the use and the spreading of technologies, new and rescue task is the goal, then sensors such as cameras, thermal cam-
solutions have been explored dealing with the concept of robotic and eras, laser, light, temperature, gas, smoke, oxygen, humidity, listening
automatic survey using low-cost technology. More specifically, the use and ultrasound are the most common used sensors to detect the envi-
of a robotic platform may drastically reduce the time and cost needed ronment in indoor and outdoor environment.
for a relief, if compared to a classical approach.
In addition, teleoperation allows the inspection of sites dangerous or 2.1.3. Communication tools
difficult to access by human operators. Moreover, the use of low-cost Either wireless or wired-based communication systems can be used
technology both for the mechanical design solution of the mobile robot for robot localization/navigation and data transmission. Therefore, in
and the onboard sensors allow the substitution of the IRS in the case of indoor environment the condition of signal reception inside a building
damages or if the robot is lost. needs to be checked. In the case of poor or bad reception, a wired-only
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 outlines requirements for communication solution has to be considered in order to ensure reliable
automatic/robotic inspection and monitoring in industrial environment. communication during the inspection.
A solution is proposed as based on a hybrid mobile robotic platform.
Section 3 presents the mechatronic design of the proposed system with 2.1.4. Hardware and software reliability
suitable sensorization and Section 4 proposes first experimental results It is necessary to specify, at early design stage, if engineers, who are
for the performance assessment. Finally, conclusions are outlined. familiar with the design and development of the mobile robot, will oper-
ate it; or if novice operators, who are not necessarily capable to perform
maintenance to the robot or internal and external sensors suites, will use
2. Requirements and solutions it. These situations influence both hardware and software reliability. For
the first issues, robust hardware has to be designed, built and provided
In the following, the task requirements and the proposed robotic plat- in order to be able to perform a mission without the need of robot main-
form will be illustrated and discussed according to the inspection and tenance due to breaks or failure circumstances. Referring to the software
monitoring tasks in industrial environment. Nevertheless, the consider- reliability, it must be easy-to-use and robust, and has to provide almost
ations and proposed solutions can be broadly adapted to different types autonomous data acquisition. In many cases, the engineers are the oper-
of scenarios. ators that do the task, but in industrial planned inspection task it would

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Fig. 1. THROO mobile robot: a) a prototype; b) schemes of the legs and their trajectory.

be preferable to be able to adopt the second choice to widespread the In particular, the five given poses P1 to P5 in Fig. 1b) are used to
use of the proposed solution. solve the synthesis problem. Design solutions involving a higher number
of DOFs may be also used to increase the robot flexibility in overcoming
2.1.5. Navigation modes obstacles, as it is shown in [28,29], but they will increase the robot
Three levels of autonomy can be defined: pure teleoperation, safe- complexity and make the control strategy more complex. Therefore, in
guarded teleoperation, and autonomous navigation. In teleoperation this context, the legs design has been based on the concept that they are
mode, imagery can be transmitted to the user over either the analog in contact with the ground/obstacle through the leg endpoints, and they
video transmitter or radio modem. In safeguarded teleoperation mode, have been designed to get a suitable motion to approach the obstacle and
an onboard obstacle avoidance behavior modifies the users teleopera- overpass it, but do not interact with ground on flat terrain, as shown in
tion commands via an arbitration scheme. In autonomous navigation the scheme of Fig. 1b). Simulations of the Dynamics of the robots on
mode, obstacle avoidance is combined with onboard goal seeking be- uneven terrain have been carried out, as reported in [27]. Experimental
haviors (waypoint following) that move the robot toward the desired tests have been also carried out. As the outcome of the experiments
target. For the inspection and monitoring tasks, in this paper we have the built prototype can climb up to an obstacle that is 125% of the track
considered the pure teleoperation mode. Nevertheless, the safeguarded high, the maximum tilting angle is 43 deg and its maximum value before
teleoperation mode is under experimentation and can be considered as overturning is about 60 deg. It has been verified that the legs can be used
enhancement of the robot’s capabilities. to stabilize the hybrid robot during the motion and prevent longitudinal
and lateral overthrow in climbing obstacles [27]. Two operating modes
2.2. Mechanical architecture of THROO are possible: 1) rover-like motion on flat or smooth terrain, which is the
most efficient type of locomotion when allowed; 2) walking-like motion,
In order to accomplish the proposed task, the THROO (Tracking Hy- when approaching and overcoming obstacles. In particular, it is worth
brid Rover for Overpassing Obstacles) in Fig. 1a) has been used as mo- to note that the symmetrical arrangement of front and rear legs has
bile platform equipped with the tool kit for inspection. According to been adopted for several reasons [27]: I) stabilization of the robot in
the authors’ knowledge, the most efficient systems for obstacle climb- terms of overturning; II) possibility in almost all cases to change the
ing and obstacle overpass are hybrid solutions dealing with tracks and direction of motion, when it is easier than turn; III) when the front (rear)
sub-tracks. legs approach the obstacle, the rear (front) leg are used as propulsive
The design concept of the THROO hybrid rover prototype is shown elements to help the robot in overcoming the obstacle.
in Fig. 1 with low-cost easy-operation features. In order to obtain these The robot specifications are the following: 3 Degrees Of Freedom
characteristics for a ground mobile robot, requirements have been con- (DOF) one for rear and front legs and two for the tracks; robot size
sidered such as compactness, lightweight, reduced number of DOFs. The (in mm 300) (legs extended 550) X 420 and height 140 (legs ex-
leg design shown in Fig. 1b) has 1-DOF giving the possibility to com- tended 550); weight 4.5 kg without batteries. The tracks are made of
bine more legs sharing the same input crank. This solution allows the rubber/aluminum alloy and are 260 × 280, the legs dimensions are
use of just one actuator for operating at same time four legs in order to 272 × 10. The travelling performance are the following, max speed
obtain a robot capable of overpassing a large number of obstacle types 0.5 m/s; max step 100 mm; max slope 60 deg; 2 hours of autonomy. The
[27]. More specifically, according to the 3D scheme of the legs in Fig. actuation system is composed by 2 DC motors for the track with follow-
1a) and their actuator, a common shaft for left and right pairs of front ing features: power supply of 24 V, max torque of 5 Nm, nominal power
and rear legs is connected to the motor through a belt transmission. The of 3.9 W. The motor used to actuate the legs has a power supply of 24 V,
common shaft directly connects the left and right cranks at points M max torque of 12 Nm, nominal power of 24 W.
and M’ . In the planar scheme in Fig. 1b the crank is drawn in black and
indicated by B0 B. The four-bar linkage for each leg is labeled B0 BAA0 P,
being B0 =M. According to the proposed mechanical design, front and 3. Mechatronic design of the Inspection Robotic System (IRS)
rear legs share the same input crank B0 B. It is worth noting that left and
right arrangements of the legs are symmetric with respect to the sagit- Two main parts, the first one devoted to the robot control for mobil-
tal plane, therefore the robot has four legs, each of them being the four ity issues and operation modes, and the other part responsible to man-
1-DOF linkages. age the external sensor suite, data acquisition and storage compose the
In particular, a 1-DOF linkage is used to get a suitable trajectory of mechatronic design of the Inspection Robotic System (IRS). In the fol-
the leg tip to aid the rover with rear and front legs to overcome obstacles. lowing, the robot control is described first, and then the sensorization
The synthesis procedure was based on Burmester problem to obtain the for the proposed application. Finally, the control scheme is detailed for
leg mechanism according to design specification and it was reported in the IRS mechatronic system composed by robotic mobile platform and
[27]. its sensor suites.

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Fig. 2. Mechatronics architecture of the control for the THROO robot in Fig. 1.

Fig. 2 shows a scheme for the control of the THROO. According

to the scheme reported in Fig. 2, (1) represents the tablet with the
software installed onboard for the robot motion control and naviga-
tion. More specifically, the DENSION WIRC software allows to turn
on and off digital inputs and outputs, and allows the robot to move
forward (F) and backward (B), turn right (R) and left (L), thanks to
the two sliders represented in the zoomed view in (7). The USB WiFi
router type TP-LINK Model TL-WN821N is indicated with (2) and al-
lows the tablet to access and connect to the WIRC hardware. The
webcam named as CAM (3) is Logitech U0024 type and the target/vision
is sent and displayed on the tablet. The DENSION WIRC hardware (4)
provided by four digital Inputs, four Digital Outputs and eight channels,
is used to control the Servo Motors. The hardware in (4) is connected
to and command the Arduino board (5), which drives via relay (6) the
robot’s actuators. The target (8) is displayed on the tablet and finally
(9) represents the overall mechatronic system architecture for the robot
navigation.
The navigation sensor suite was driven by the need for daylight ob- Fig. 3. Sensors installation on the robot.
stacle detection, mapping, position estimation, and tracking. Sensors de-
voted to the specific application are both external and internal ones
[30]. Thus, when the robot moves, the navigation sensor suite also In order to manage external and internal sensorization, the overall
named internal sensors suite acquires information sent to the tablet for layout for the ISRS is shown in Fig. 4, in which main components may
the teleoperation making the operator capable to understand the envi- be recognized.
ronment and presence of obstacles. External sensors suite is used for the Based on the information received, the measured data are displayed
inspection and monitoring tasks. More specifically, referring to Fig. 3, on the tablet (3) and laptops (4) and (5) (dual display system version).
1) is the FLIR ThermaCAM S40 thermal infrared camera for videos, and In particular, the navigation control is operated by the tablet, and data
2) is an electronic board equipped with accelerometer, gravity and gy- sensors are displayed on laptops 4) and 5).
roscope sensors, GPS sensor, magnetic field and acceleration sensors. In particular, in Fig. 4 no. (1) is the heat source that is scanned by
The front camera view for navigation is displayed as 3). The 3D scan is the thermal camera; (2) is the robot performing the monitoring task and
the Xbox Kinect shown in 4), provided with an infrared sensor, and two it is equipped with sensors onboard. The robot is tele-operated and con-
additional micro cameras. trolled by the tablet in (3). Two laptops are used for displaying purposes,
Although the selected navigation mode is tele-operated, the sensor although it is not necessary because all data from sensors are stored on
suite allows the system to be integrated with further abilities of semi- a PC and then in a Cloud, as described in [31]. More specifically (4) is
autonomous or autonomous operation, which will be considered as fu- used to display the thermographic camera outcome.
ture development of the system. The laptop (5) is used for viewing in real time the 3D scanning (a)
and a display screen (b) with information related to the robot itself,

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Fig. 4. Overview of the proposed mechatronic system.

Fig. 5. Overview of the displays (4) and (5) in Fig. 4 for the proposed mechatronic installation: a) the thermal infrared detection display; b) 3D Scan display and electronic board sensors
display.

namely GPS, accelerometers, inclinometer, which are useful for navi- Fig. 6 shows the scheme for the control architecture used to operate
gation. More specifically, zoomed views of the displays are reported in the THROO robot and interoperation with the equipment on-board. The
Figs. 5a and b. laptop (5) in Fig. 4 is connected via USB to the control board and is
It is worth noting that this is a layout to show and describe the be- used to upload the control algorithm on board to Arduino. The Arduino
havior of the system. In the set-up for monitoring and experimental ac- board that runs the control algorithm operates the three DC motors that
tivities, most of the sensors must be protected against dust, dirty and handle omnidirectional motion, and drives legs.
possible damages by using a cover. Such cover is not displayed. The interoperability of the sensors on board with navigation sen-
sorization is managed by the control board and the WIRC Controller.

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Visual inspection is probably the most important among the others

in indoor and outdoor inspection. Unlike 2D map building, 3D map-
ping can determine the size of object and reconstruct the environment.
Thanks to the improving computing performances and development of
measurement sensors, 3D map building research has greatly increased.
The used devices for obtaining 3D information are laser scanners, and
ToF (Time of Flight) cameras to produce the point clouds of the environ-
ment or the object. Vision SLAM extracts features from the camera image
and estimate motion. Referring to 3D mapping and SLAM, a number of
authors in very recent years explored the possibility to use a Microsoft
Kinect sensor to identify features of an object or the environment, as
for example [32, 33]. The Kinect sensor is also called RGB-D camera
and includes a color camera, a depth camera, an accelerometer, and
tilting motor. The depth sensor is a near infrared projector that projects
a known structured pattern being observed by an IR camera. Indeed the
RGB D camera reconstructs a 3D map by combining the color informa-
tion and distance information.
In this context, experimental tests have been carried out in labora-
tory environment, an example of the outcome is shown in Fig. 7 by using
Fig. 6. A scheme for the implemented control architecture. a commercial software for 3D map building, in which the StL file is dis-
played of the 3D Scan for a mechanical component. These experiments
have been carried out in order to test the reconstruction capabilities of
Particular attention has been devoted to design the interface control the system architecture for the proposed application.
between the WIRC controller and Arduino board, which is managed For many industrial applications, not only for monitoring and
through digital signals modulated in PWM (Pulse-Width-Modulation). surveillance but also in production lines of electronics and automotive,
A constant train of pulses, all having the same duration and the same obtaining thermal data is of great interest and crucial importance, be-
frequency, constitutes the carrier wave. When this signal is modulated cause it can provide different and complementary information to vision.
it transmits a value proportional to the control signal (the position of Thermal imagery provides an excellent solution in industrial environ-
the slider on the tablet), therefore the modulator has the task of vary- ment for applications involving non-contact precision temperature mea-
ing the duration of the carrier wave pulses directly proportional to the surement and non-destructive testing [34]. In addition, it may be used in
amplitude of the reference signal. other environments, as for example brownfields of historical buildings
[35] because it provides information about on textural data of the ma-
terials constituting the various objects. Furthermore, the state of decay
3.1. Sensors description
can be investigated detecting thermal irregularities. This technology can
be integrated with automation to get enhancements of industrial indoor
Inspection and surveillance of industrial sites, structures, and infras-
and outdoor inspection of infrastructure and increase quality in produc-
tructure are important issues for their sustainability and maintenance.
tion. An overview of possible industrial and non-industrial applications
These indoor and outdoor operations are usually performed by inspec-
is reported in [36].
tors and require accomplishing standards, and are time consuming. In
An example of the outcome for detection of electrical component in
addition, these environments are usually characterized by dust, humid-
industrial environment is given in Fig. 8. In particular, thermal imag-
ity, and in some cases by absence of natural light. Therefore, classical
ing camera may give information about poor connection and internal
approaches that rely on large human activities are performed in unsafe
damage, internal fuse damage, incorrectly secured connection for elec-
or dangerous conditions in some particular cases. In recent years, sev-
trical/electronic components in industrial environment.
eral studies have been conducted to explore the use of robotic systems
In order to control the robot operations internal sensors have been
to perform tele-operated monitoring and inspection to reduce human ef-
considered to verify the status of the system with relation of the envi-
forts. In particular, in industrial and outdoor applications, automation
and robotics can be an efficient solution that may help.

Fig. 7. Example of the 3D scan: a) mechanical component: b) StL file of the 3D scan.

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P. Rea, E. Ottaviano Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 49 (2018) 143–151

Fig. 8. Example of the thermal infrared detection: a) electrical component; b) infrared image.

Type Range Resoluon Power

PSH
Accelerometer 0...39.227 0.01 (0.024%) 0.006mA
(Intel Inc.)
PSH Gyroscope
sensor (Intel Inc.) 0...34.907 0.002 (0.005%) 6.1mA
PSH Gravity sensor
(Intel Inc.) 0...19.613 0.005 (0.024%) 0.006mA
PSH Magnec field
sensor (Intel Inc.) 0...800 0.5 (0.062%) 0.1mA
-
PSH Linear
Acceleraon 0...19.613 0.005 (0.024%) 0.006mA
sensor (Intel Inc.)
a) b)

Fig. 9. Electronic board with sensors: a) display; b) technical data.

Fig. 10. Photo sequence of the experimental test to simulate industrial environment in which the robot is commanded by wireless communication for scanning a wall.

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P. Rea, E. Ottaviano Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 49 (2018) 143–151

Fig. 11. Outcome of the experimental test in Fig. 10 for the simultaneous data acquisition of: a) an electronic component; b) the thermal image of the component; c) the 3D relief.

ronment. The display of the internal sensor suite is shown in Fig. 9a) also take profit by already developed networks. An industrial network
and main characteristics of the sensors are given in Fig. 9b). laboratory prototype has been proposed in [41] in which several kits
The sensors on the electronic board are used to understand the sta- have been implemented for local and remote control issues. Therefore,
tus of the robot during teleoperation, as based on gyroscope and tri-axial communications protocols can be also used for remote control and data
measurements to prevent overthrow with possible damage to the equip- storage, when the security of network access is also taken into account
ment or loss of the robot control. limiting and controlling the access [41].
If a cable communication system is required due to specific require-
ments, i.e. nuclear plants, it is necessary to design and operate the robot
3.2. Communication tools
taking into account the presence of the wired communication of all data,
which may greatly limit the robots’ operations. An effective and success-
Depending upon the application, the operation of the robot can be
ful solution was adopted in [20] considering a dual-robot system, one
performed in three ways namely pure teleoperation, safeguarded tele-
devoted to the exploration and one used for carrying the cable drum
operation, and autonomous navigation. The last one is out of the scope
and unreeling mechanism.
of the paper and the pure teleoperation is adopted in this context. For
safety reasons or simply for convention, it is necessary/preferable that
the operator of the robot should be located at a distance; in some cases, 4. Performance assessment
wireless communication is possible, in other cases (i.e. thickness of the
walls, or unfriendly environment for transmitting and receiving radio The THROO hybrid robot has been equipped with the described sen-
waves) wired solution has to be adopted. sors and tested in indoor laboratory environment to simulate industrial
In industrial environment, wireless communication is available and environmental operating conditions, as it is shown in Fig. 10.
preferable in almost all cases to avoid wired solutions that limit the Preliminary tests performed on the robotic mobile hybrid platform
range of mobility and distance of the robot. Indeed, the communication were reported in [27], in which a comparison was performed between
facility consists of: I) Integration of sensors with wireless communica- numerical and experimental results giving a good match. In particu-
tion and embedded computing to form smart sensors and smart sensor lar, the ability of the THROO hybrid robot was experimentally tested in
network with powerful function; II) multi-sensing-function sensors with overpass obstacles. A step field pallet was first simulated and then used
wireless communication, and advanced data processing and possibility for experimental activity. Several tests have been carried out in indoor
to store on a Cloud. environment with the on board equipment, as the one reported in Fig.
The sensors information required to navigation and specifically re- 10. In particular, the scan of a wall is shown identifying the electronic
lated to the inspection is sent either to the laptops and can be stored on component functionality.
a Cloud [31]. More specifically the interoperability of sensors and wireless com-
The integration of sensors and its management has been a subject munication is demonstrated by the photo sequence in Fig. 10, in which
of research activity in different specific domains, as for example re- the robot is tele-operated by wireless communication. The operation of
lated also to monitoring of earthquakes [37], master and slave oper- the developed control scheme architecture allows controlling simulta-
ations [38], home safety [39] and service robots and devices home-care neously internal sensors for navigation and external equipment for 3D
[40]. It is worth to mention that the IRS involved in industrial sites may scan and thermal imagery. Data is in real-time displayed and stored.

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In the reported example in Fig. 10, an electrical element was an- [8] L. Matthies, Y. Xiong, R. Hogg, D. Zhu, A. Rankin, B. Kennedy, M. Hebert,
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