Sandboxing for Cross-Platform Applications of Robots

This paper is based on a collaboration between Lodz University of Technology (TUL), University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), National Instruments and Emersons Process Management at an academic level in employing tools of ICT (Information, Communication Technology) in implementing cross-platform applications in robotics. As the focus was on a conceptual level, we decided to use existing ICT tools in the two Universities with focus on sanboxing environment for testing different HW/SW integration in robotics. A cross platform study involving different programs was launched to control the robots in Lodz using LabVIEW of National Instruments (NI) and DeltaV of Emerson Process Management. This paper describes some main issues related to the fusion of these programs to achieve tele-operation and cognitive robotics. The chosen client/server technology used for tele-operation was OPC (Open Platform Communications). Cogent OPC DataHub Tunneller was used to communicate between USN and TUL using the internet. A DeltaV program was developed to update the robotic arm control variables. Delta V OPC Mirror was used to map the OPC tags from the DeltaV OPC Server to a MatrikonOPC Simulation Server. The transferred OPC data is retrieved in LabVIEW at TUL. With this solution, it is possible to control the robotic arm located in TUL, from the Delta V work-station in Norway, thus realising tele-operation. The LabVIEW user interface has the option of choosing between local and tele-operations. In addition, a cognitive system was realised using sterovision cameras.