Development of model-based remote maintenance robot system. I. Outline of the robot system

Describes the outline of a model-based remote maintenance robot system for nuclear facilities such as nuclear power plants and nuclear fusion reactors. This robot system aims at autonomously carrying out maintenance tasks which the operator directs by task-level commands, for example, "set flange" and "set valve". This robot system is composed of a device for measuring the position of the object to be handled, a task planner which generates the robot control program from the task-level command, and an arm controller which moves the arm under either position or stiffness control according to the generated program. In experiments, the robot system carried out the insertion of a bolt and the setting of a nut on a flange.