The Project

The Robot Teleoperativo project, in collaboration with INAIL (“Istituto Nazionale per l'Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro” - National Institute for Insurance against Workplace Injuries, Italy) CUP J32F17000950005, is aimed at the development of a novel, collaborative teleoperation hardware and software system dedicated to operating in certain hazard-prone industries, reducing the risks to the workers’ safety and well-being. It utilizes, develops, and integrates advanced technologies in tele-locomotion, tele-manipulation, and remote human-robot interaction.

The project builds on the existing technological expertise and capabilities at IIT, and involves THREE distinct research lines, contributing the know-how in locomotion, perception and visualization, manipulation, and teleoperation.

The Challenge

In certain work environments, e.g., nuclear, chemical, disaster response, construction/demolition, submarine, there can be extreme risks to the occupational safety and health (OSH) of the workers. Hazards may be present in the form of toxicity, radiation, dangers to potential explosions, exposures to chemicals, etc., where the magnitudes reach a point that human exposure would either represent a direct threat to life or long-term health consequences.

The pie-chart on the right shows the distribution of the OSH risk for each industrial sector. As can be seen, the “Nuclear” sector presents the most risk to the safety of workers. The sectors that follow closely behind are “Oil and Gas”, “Energy”, “Manufacturing”, “Metallurgy”, and “Government Services (Disaster Response)”. These can be considered as the top-6 “vulnerable” sectors.

Robotics can be an obvious solution to mitigate this human risk. Robots not only physically perform most of the tasks, but also, given the cognitive ability, can problem-solve in complex environments. Through substitution, i.e., removing the worker from the unsafe area, an advanced, intelligent system linked to dexterous mobile platforms could form a solution to reduce or eliminate exposure to hazards.

The End-Users

As one of the potential application areas and would-be end-users, the project has established a close working relationship with the Corpo Nazionale dei Vigili del Fuoco (VV.F.) in Genova, Italy. They have helped identify challenge scenarios relevant to VV.F. both in terms of their practicality and the advantages offered through an advanced robotic system such as the Robot Teleoperativo system. The tasks are inspired by the actual activities (both manipulation and navigation) that VV.F. personnel undertake in the normal course of their response to emergencies. The project includes field validation trials and demonstrations of the developed prototypes in close collaboration with VV.F.

The Approach

The project is built on FOUR key technologies, divided into TWO overall subsystems, as described below. The simultaneous research and exploitation possibilities in the technologies drive the contributions in the project. Below the technologies and their main features - the FIELD robot composed of the INAIL-IIT Robotic Arm and the HyQReal hydraulic quadruped platform; and the PILOT station composed of the REMOTArm + HEXOTrAc-Plus teleoperation platform, combined with the 3D immersive VR visualization interface.

Click on the images in the subsystems to learn more about them.

The Overall Architecture

The image shows the overall architecture of the Robot Teleoperativo concept, with the various subsystems. As is evident, the solid arrows indicate the inter-connections. The two-sided arrows indicate bi-directional communication and control.

Publications

2021

• E. Barrett, E. Mingo-Hoffman, L. Baccelliere, and N.G. Tsagarakis, "Mechatronic Design and Control of a Light Weight Manipulator Arm for Mobile Robot Platforms," IEEE/ASME AIM 2021 (to appear)
• G. Li, J. Liu, I. Sarakoglou, and N. Tsagarakis, "An Angle-Axis Space-based Orientability Index Characterizing Complete Orientations," IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, Early Access, doi:10.1109/TMECH.2021.3074598
• G. Li, F. Caponetto, E. D. Bianco, V.-M. Katsageorgiou, I. Sarakoglou, and N. Tsagarakis, "A Workspace Limit Approach for Teleoperation based on Signed Distance Function," IEEE Robot. and Autom. (RA-L), vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 5589-5596, 2021.
• A. Naceri, D. Mazzanti, J. Bimbo, Y. Tefera, D. Pratticchizzo, D. G. Caldwell, L. S. Mattos, and N. Deshpande, "The Vicarios Virtual Reality Interface for Remote Robotic Teleoperation," J Intell Robot Syst 101, 80 (2021). doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01311-7

2020

• G. Raiola, E. M. Hoffman, M. Focchi, N. Tsagarakis, and C. Semini, "A Simple Yet Effective Whole-Body Locomotion Framework for Quadruped Robots," Frontiers in Robotics and AI, vol. 7, 2020, doi: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frobt.2020.528473
• G. Li, E. D. Bianco, F. Caponetto, V. Katsageorgiou, N. G. Tsagarakis, and I. Sarakoglou, "A Novel Orientability Index and the Kinematic Design of the RemoT-ARM: A Haptic Master with Large and Dexterous Workspace," IEEE Int. Conf. on Robot. and Autom. (ICRA 2020), Paris, France, 2020, pp. 11319-11325.
• G. Fink and C. Semini, "The DLS Quadruped Proprioceptive Sensor Dataset," 23^rd International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines, Moscow, Russia, August, 2020.
• G. Li, F. Caponetto, E. D. Bianco, I. Sarakoglou, V. Katsageorgiou, and N. G. Tsagarakis, "Perpendicular Curve-based Incomplete Orientation Mapping for Teleoperation with DOF Asymmetry," IEEE Robot. and Autom. (RA-L) & IROS 2020, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 5167-5174, 2020
• G. Fink and C. Semini, "Proprioceptive Sensor Fusion for Quadruped Robot State Estimation," IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intell. Robots and Systems (IROS 2020), Las Vegas, USA, 2020, pp. 10914-10920.
• E. M. Hoffman, M. P. Polverini, A. Laurenzi and N. G. Tsagarakis, "A Study on Sparse Hierarchical Inverse Kinematics Algorithms for Humanoid Robots," in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 235-242, Jan. 2020, doi: 10.1109/LRA.2019.2954820.

2019

• A. Naceri, D. Mazzanti, J. Bimbo, D. Prattichizzo, D. G. Caldwell, L. S. Mattos, and N. Deshpande, "Towards a Virtual Reality Interface for Remote Robotic Teleoperation," 19^th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Dec. 2019, pp. 284-289
• M. F. Sani, B. Emery, D. G. Caldwell, L. S. Mattos, and N. Deshpande, "Towards Sound-source Position Estimation using Mutual Information for Next Best View Motion Planning," 19^th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Dec. 2019, pp. 24-29.
• G. Fink and C. Semini, "Proprioceptive Sensor Dataset for Quadrupeds," Visual-Inertial Navigation" Challenges and Applications, IROS 2019 Workshop.
• C. Semini, V. Barasuol, M. Focchi, C. Boelens, M. Emara, S. Casella, O. Villarreal, R. Orsolino, G. Fink, S. Fahmi, G. Medrano-Cerda, D. Sangiah, J. Lesniewski, K. Fulton, M. Donadon, M. Baker, and D. G. Caldwell, "Brief introduction to the quadruped robot HyQReal," Italian Conference on Robotics and Intelligent Machines (I-RIM), 2019.
• E. Mingo-Hoffman et al, "Teleoperation Challenges and Experiences," Workshop on Teleoperation of Humanoid Robots, IEEE Humanoids 2019, Toronto, Canada

2018

• E. Barrett et al., "Contact Force Measurement in the presence of Parallel Elastic Actuation," IEEE IROS 2018, Workshop on Development of Agile Robots.

2017

• N. Deshpande, J. Ortiz, I. Sarakoglou, C. Semini, N. Tsagarakis, A. Brygo, J. Fernandez, M. Frigerio, L. Saccares, S. Toxiri, & D. G. Caldwell, "Next Generation Collaborative Robotic Systems for Industrial Safety and Health," in Safety and Security Engineering VII, C. A. Brebbia, F. Garzia, M. Lombardi (eds.), WIT Transactions on the Built Environment, Vol. 174, 2017, pp. 187-200.

Leadership Team

Project Manager & Visualization Lead
Nikhil Deshpande (IIT)

Project Director
Carlo De Petris (INAIL)

Team Members

Affiliated Members

Past Members

News/Press

2021

May 2021 - Results of the Robot Teleoperativo project released online!

• Robohub article
• Wevolver article
• YouTube video release
• Claudio Semini, Workshop talk @ ICRA 2021

January 2021 - Phase 2 of the project, Robot Teleoperativo 2, launched!

• [RT-2 project launch] - The RT-2 project (short for Robot Teleoperativo 2) is aimed at the advancement of the results achieved at the end of the first phase of the Robot Teleoperativo project. The 3-year second phase of the project started in January 2021 This phase envisages a step-change in the evolution of the design and operational capabilities of the collaborative teleoperation system, dedicated to operation in hazardous environments.

2020

December 2020 - Final demonstration of Robot Teleoperativo successfully achieved!

• Teaser video on YouTube
• [Final Demonstration] - On 18 December, the final demonstration of the integrated FIELD robot and PILOT station was achieved. The demonstration concluded the first three years of studies on the project. In an experimental session shown via online streaming together with INAIL, the real-time remote teleoperation of the FIELD robot, from the PILOT station (which was about 20m away, without line-of-sight), was demonstrated through real world use-cases. These included the capability of the platform to navigate on difficult terrain, open doors, access fire-fighting equipment, retrieve precious objects, etc.

July 2020 - First integration and demonstration of the subsystems

• [First Integration] - In July 2020, the first integration of the FIELD robot and the PILOT station were completed. The integration was demonstrated through a series of preliminary use-cases, e.g., door-opening, uneven ramp crawling, stair-climbing, etc.

2019

October 2019 - Individual subsystems demonstrated publicly for the first time!

• [INAIL Event, 23 October, 2019] - Robotica e tecnologie indossabili per un nuovo approccio alla sicurezza del lavoro
• [Maker Faire, 18-20 October, 2019] - Maker Faire, Rome

May 2019 - HyQReal pulls a plane!

• [Press coverage] - IEEE Spectrum Robotics Blog; La Repubblica; Reuters; Corriere della Sera