Development of a remotely operated robot system for movement in narrow areas based on workspace characteristics

When several robots operate in the same workspace simultaneously, e.g., in nuclear decommissioning, it is necessary to consider their movement in narrow areas. In such environments, both autonomous navigation and manual remote operation are necessary because of the unknown operating conditions that may require human judgements. We develop and experimentally verify an enhanced remotely operated robot system that can freely switch between autonomous navigation and manual remote operation with a common communication protocol; its operating conditions can be changed according to the workspace characteristics. In the proposed system, a robot could move in narrow areas by specifying the workspace and automatically changing its obstacle detection distance. Furthermore, it showed that two robots could pass-by each other without any coordination by appropriate conditions. We will investigate additional parameters, such as movement speed and priority using inter-robot communication for nuclear decommissioning and other applications.