• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.489-500
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• 2014

In this study, remote handling strategies for a large-scale argon cell facility were considered. The suggested strategies were evaluated by several types of field test. The teleoperation tasks were performed using a developed remote handling system, which enabled traveling over entire cell area using a bridge transport system. Each arm of the system had six DOFs (degrees of freedom), and the bridge transport system had four DOFs. However, despite the dexterous manipulators and redundant monitoring system, many operators, including professionals, experienced difficulties in operating the remote handling system. This was because of the lack of a strategy for handling the installed camera system, and the difficulty in recognizing the gripper pose, which might fall outside the FOV (field of vision) of the system during teleoperation. Hence, in this paper, several considerations for the remote handling tasks performed in the target facility were discussed, and the tasks were analyzed based on ergonomic factors such as the workload. Toward the development of a successful operation strategy, several ergonomic issues, such as active/passive view of the remote handling system, eye/hand alignment, and FOV were considered. Furthermore, using the method for classifying remote handling tasks, several unit tasks were defined and evaluated.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2013

Objective: The aim of this study is ergonomic analysis of tele-operation tasks using modified remote handling devices dedicated to the cell of PRIDE(PyRoprocess Integrated inactive DEmonstration facility) in KAERI(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute). Background: Tele-operation manipulators of the PRIDE are applied to perform the remote handling and management of pyroprocessing facilities. Generally, these kinds of systems are composed of master-slave system and its peripherals installed along a wall or ceiling of the cell, and the manipulators transmit the user's own motion to grippers directly. However, a user convenience and intuitiveness while operating the manipulators have not been fully considered in research fields. Method: This study tries to analyze the ergonomic performance of remote handling manipulators in the developed cell facility. It was included that the analysis of operator's capability for his/her own motion range of upper arm while manipulating the MSM, considerations of its manipulation margin and related tool modifications to improve the remote handling performance. Conclusion: The test results of several remote handling tasks performed in PRIDE are represented, and adequate operation strategies for the tele-operation system of hot-cell type facilities are proposed. Application: The knowledge represented in this study can be utilized to improve a tele-operation system operated in a large-scale hot-cell system.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1993.10a
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• pp.821-824
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• 1993

In hazardous conditions, where entry of human operators is restricted, such as high radiation regions in nuclear facilities, a lot of remote inspections and remote handling tasks must be performed. In this study, the stereo imaging system has been developed and the remote handling technique, has been studied to enhance the efficiency of tele-operation. The nozzle dam handling robot is one of the most important robots applied to nuclear facility. The robot will be equipped with the developed stereo imaging system. The stereo imaging system will outstandingly improve the tele installing/removal tasks for nozzle dam.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2467-2470
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• 2003

In this paper, fault tolerant mechanisms are presented for a servo manipulator system designed to operate in a hot cell. A hot cell is a sealed and shielded room to handle radioactive materials, and it is dangerous for people to work in the hot cell. So, remote operations are necessary to handle radioactive materials in the hot cell. KAERI has developed a servo manipulator system to perform such remote operations. However, since electric components such as servo motors are weak to radiations, fault tolerant mechanisms have to be considered. For fault tolerance of the servo manipulator system, hardware and software redundancy have been considered. In case of hardware, radioactive resistant electric components such as cables and connectors have been adopted and motors driving a transport have been duplicated. In case of software, a reconfiguration algorithm accommodating one motor's failure has been developed. The algorithm uses redundant axis to recover the end effector's motion in spite of one motor's failure.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.524-530
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• 2012

In this study, it is performed that the assessment of feasibility of developed material processing facilities using tele-operation manipulator system for the pyroprocessing. To evaluate the performance of developed facilities using tele-operation system, several performance indices are considered as remote visibility, remote reachability and remote manipulability. These are applied to RHEM (Remote Handling Evaluation Mock-up) and digital mock-up system respectively. Through this approaches, several requirements for the system improvement are deduced and preliminary inspection for real system application is fully performed. Additionally, assembly and disassembly tasks for the repair of remote handling system are also examined remotely in RHEM and evaluated those performances.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.5 no.5
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• pp.55-62
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• 1996

This paper describes development of Polarized Stereo Monitoring System (KAERI-PSM) and compares the remote handling performance of KAERI-PSM with that of other monitoring systems, electric shutter type stereo monitoring system and general TV monitoring system. Remote handling performance is evaluated by total time and error number on remote operating experiments. Four kinds of remote handling experiments are carried out through 1) directly 2) general TV 3) electric shutter type monitor, and 4) KAERI-PSM. In these experiments six employees are participated and PUMA robot with force-torque reflectional joystic is used. The result of experiments show that camera angle against object is significant factor in monitoring and stereo monitoring system give more performance benifits in terms of accuracy and speed of remote handling operation than general TV monitoring system. In comparision of the polarized and electric shutter type stereo monitoring system, both have similar accuracy and speed for remote handling operation, but the former is superior in image quality and stability of the performance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.214-225
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• 2003

A teleoperated manipulator system has been developed for remote handling of the spent fuel bundles. A heavy-duty power manipulator with high reduction ratio joints is used for the slave manipulator in the developed system since the handling tasks of the spent fuel bundles need power. Also, the universal type master manipulator, which has force reflecting capability, is used for precise remote manipulation. The power manipulators so frequently occur the control input saturation that the precise control performances are not achieved due to the windup phenomenon. An advanced bilateral control scheme compensating for the saturation is applied to the teleoperated manipulator system. The validity of the developed system is verified by the grid cutting and fuel transportation tasks from the mockup spent fuel bundle.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2471-2474
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• 2003

This paper focuses on the stability and operability of a man-machine system considering a human operator. Some papers' main interest has been the stability only, but the operability such as fatigue is also the other main interest. In a man-machine system, feelings such as motional, visual, and kinesthetic are important since those enable operators to work easily or fatigue operators. A model of a man-machine system has been developed. Motional, visual, and kinesthetic feelings may be considered as feedbacked sensor signals. We also have quantified the degree of fatigue with respect to reference operation. This is a performance index to be optimized. Several methods are presented to optimize the degree of fatigue and the stability of the integrated system. Examples are presented to show that the usefulness of the proposed modeling method and fatigue mitigating algorithm.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.2275-2278
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• 2005

In this paper, a control algorithm for a servo manipulator is focused on. A servo manipulator system has been developed for remotely handling radioactive materials in a hot cell. It is driven by servo motors. The torque from a servo motor is transferred through a reducer to the corresponding axis. The PID control algorithm is a simple and effective algorithm for such application. However, since friction degrades the algorithm's performance, friction has to be considered and compensated. The major aberrations are the positional tracking errors and the limit cycle. The authors have considered a switching term to a conventional PID algorithm to reduce the friction's effect. It has been tested by a hardware test.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.437-438
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• 2011