JPH02218587A - Monitor device for robot - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To intuitively decide the absolute position and direction of a circumferential body seen from a robot by constituting so as to drive a TV camera universal head by following up the movement of the face directly viewing the image of the slave arm terminal of an operator operating a master arm. CONSTITUTION:Due to the direction and attitude of a TV camera 11 and those of a video projector 17 being almost similarly held, the direction and attitude of the image on a video screen visualized by an operator coincide completely with those of the visual field of the TV camera 11. So the absolute position and direction of the body of the circumference seen from a robot can be decided intuitively.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Object of the Invention] (Industrial Field of Application) The present invention relates to a remote-controlled robot monitoring device used in a facility that requires remote-controlled work such as an atomic couplant.

(Conventional technology) For tasks that cannot be performed directly, such as removing hazardous materials or processing nuclear waste that poses a risk of radiation exposure, remote-controlled master/slave manipulators or remote-controlled unmanned driving are used. In the above-mentioned work where various remote control devices such as cars are often used, it is often necessary to perform remote control in a place where the work area cannot be seen directly, and it is necessary to watch the left side of the TV to monitor the work area. A remote control monitoring device combined with a camera monitor is used.

Hereinafter, a conventional robot monitoring device will be described using a master-slave manipulator system as an example. TV left camera 1 for monitoring a remotely controlled robot such as a master-slave manipulator system 1 It is usually mounted on a pan head having multiple degrees of freedom. Thus, the movement of the TV left camera platform covers the entire range of motion of the robot. In conventional remote monitoring devices.

Since the monitor TV is fixed, the left TV camera on the slave side moves arbitrarily and its line of sight changes.

You may become confused about the direction of the monitor TV screen and lose track of the direction in which you should operate the master arm.

In order to resolve this problem, the coordinates of the master arm have recently been made to always match the coordinates on the monitor screen, regardless of the TV left camera direction or orientation.

Attempts have been made to automatically exchange coordinates between the mask and slave by following the movement of the pan head.

However, in order to implement the above problem solving means, it is necessary to change the transformation coefficients of the coordinate transformation in real time, and a large number of real number calculations must be processed at high speed and in a short time. For this purpose, it is necessary to use an expensive computer capable of high-speed calculation. In addition, with this solution, the operator does not know the status, orientation, etc. of the slave as a whole based on absolute coordinates, so the overall positional relationship between the slave and the environment is not clear, and it is difficult to grasp the operating limits of the slave, It is impossible to grasp the relative position of objects outside the field of view of the TV camera, and there is a risk of erroneous operation.

To solve the above problem, the operator wears a helmet with a monitor, the movement of this helmet is detected mechanically or electrically, and the camera head on the slave side is controlled by following the movement of the helmet. At present, it is possible to match the line of sight of the operator and the robot so that the direction the TV camera is looking at can be naturally understood, and avoid the problems mentioned above. This had the drawback that the operator could only see the monitor screen, making it impossible to monitor the status of the master or the display panel. Furthermore, during long-term operations, operator fatigue due to wearing a helmet cannot be ignored.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) The present invention has been made based on the above-mentioned circumstances, and is capable of faithfully conveying the line of sight and posture of the TV left camera mounted on the remote control robot side to the operator.

Moreover, it is an object of the present invention to provide a monitoring device for a robot that allows an operator to naturally observe an image on the slave side and a master arm and display device on the operator side at the same time.

[Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) The robot monitoring device of the present invention includes a master arm that has a multi-joint master arm and a slave arm that also has a multi-joint joint.
A slave manipulator and a TV left camera attached to the slave arm of this master/slave manipulator via a pan head that can pan and tilt, the operator who operates the master arm has the same degree of freedom as the TV camera pan head. a spherical video screen centered on a tilt axis of the video projector head installed in front of the operator's position;
means for controlling the drive of a slave manipulator, means for controlling the drive of the TV camera platform, and controlling the drive of the video projector to drive and control the video projector platform by following the movement of the TV camera platform. and means for keeping the direction and posture of the left TV camera and those of the video projector substantially similar at all times, wherein the direction and posture of the left TV camera are always maintained substantially similar to those of the video projector, and the operator who operates the master arm has a means for keeping the direction and posture of the left TV camera substantially similar to that of the video projector. A feature of the present invention is that the TV camera pan head is driven accordingly.

(Function) In the robot monitoring device of the present invention having the above configuration, the TV
Since the direction and posture of the left camera and those of the video projector are always kept almost similar, the operator can
The direction and orientation of the image on the video screen completely match those of the TV camera's field of view, so the absolute position and orientation of surrounding objects visible to the robot can be intuitively determined.

Furthermore, in the robot monitoring device of the present invention, the coordinate axes within the video screen on the video screen are always aligned with the fixed coordinate axes on the operator side centered on the video projector. Therefore.

By operating the master arm in a desired direction within the video screen, the slave arm can be moved to the desired position.

Furthermore, as the operator's face moves to look directly at the image of the slave arm end, the TV left camera stand is driven accordingly, so the image of the slave arm side is always displayed on the video screen.

(Embodiment) A first embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 6. This embodiment is constructed using a master/slave manipulator, and FIG. 1 shows the robot (slave) side. A stereoscopic TV camera 11 is supported on the robot's board 10, and is centered on both vertical and horizontal axes. A TV camera pan head 12 that can be tilted (panned, tilted) is attached to the slave arm 13 attached to the substrate 10.
is monitored by the stereoscopic TV camera.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of the TV camera pan head 12.
A pan drive section 12b including a motor and a speed reducer is provided in the TV camera pan head base 12a hanging down from the board 10, and this pan drive section 12b is connected to the U-shaped TV camera pan head frame 12c.
Rotate around the vertical axis. Further, a tilt drive unit 12d is provided on the leg of the TV camera pan head frame 12c, and this tilt drive unit tilts the stereoscopic TV camera 11 about the horizontal axis. Note that 14 in the figure indicates an imaging light source provided on the bottom surface of the TV camera. Thus, the three-dimensional TV camera 11 can monitor the entire operating range of the slave arm 13 by panning and tilting the TV camera platform 12.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing essential parts on the operator side of the embodiment. In this figure, the pillar 1 erected on the base 15
A video projector pan head 1 having the same configuration as the TV left camera stand 12 has a video projector 17 mounted thereon.
8 is installed.

An operator 20 sitting on a chair 19 on a base 15 is monitoring a video screen (not shown) by wearing a stereoscope 21 made up of a liquid crystal shutter lens.

Note that 22 in Figure 5 is a master arm, which the operator 20 operates with his right hand.

Additionally, a magnetic source is included within the column 16 to create a magnetic field around the operator's 20 head. 2 in the diagram
Reference numeral 3 indicates a pole piece, and 24 indicates a magnetic field measuring sensor attached to a proper location of the stereoscopic scope 21, for example, at the negative end.

FIG. 4 is a schematic side view showing the entire operator side. In this figure, the video screen 25 forms part of a spherical surface having a radius r centered on the tilt axis of the video projector 17.

Therefore, the video projector 17 can image any position on the video screen 25 by tilting and panning the video projector 17. Moreover, the video projector 17 is a TV
The video signal sent from the camera 11 is divided into R, G, and B lights.
The image is converted into primary colors and projected onto the video screen 25 to form an image.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing the control/drive system of the embodiment. In this figure, the control/drive system includes a general system computer 30, a mask/slave control computer 31, a slave drive controller 32, a mask drive controller 33, a pan head control computer 34, and a TV camera pan head. A drive controller 35, a video projector platform drive controller 36,
Operation/display panel 37. Stereoscopic TV camera control circuit 38.
The operation of the above-mentioned embodiment having the above-mentioned structure is as follows. Master·
The slave manipulator is generally a remote control robot system that controls the slave arm 13 by following the movement of the master arm 22 operated by the operator 20, and the master slave control computer 31 commands and controls the position, speed, etc. of both arms. Do this. Operator 20 is a 3D TV
The master arm 22 is operated while observing the image captured by the camera 11 and formed on the video screen 25 by the projector 17. FIG. 6 is a perspective view of this embodiment as seen from the rear side of the operator.

Note that when operating the master arm 22, the operator 20 turns his face so as to gaze from the front at the part of the hand in the slave arm image 13a on the image screen 25a.

This facial movement is measured non-contact and in real time by the magnetic field measurement sensor 24 attached to the stereoscope 21 and the three-dimensional motion measurement circuit 39. This measured facial movement is input to the pan head control computer 24. The pan head control calculator 24 calculates the attitude of the camera pan head 12 according to the movement of the face, and drives the camera pan head 12 according to the movement of the face via the camera pan head drive controller 35. do. Further, the pan head control calculator 24 drives the video projector 17 in accordance with the movement of the stereoscopic TV camera 12 via the video projector pan head drive controller 36.

Therefore, the video screen 25a always exists in the direction in which the operator 20 is currently looking on the video screen 25, and the video 13a of the slave arm 13 does not deviate from the video screen.

In the robot monitoring device of the present invention having the above configuration, (1) The direction and posture of the image on the video screen 25 perceived by the operator 20 are exactly the same as those of the field of view of the 3D TV camera 11, so the surroundings visible from the robot; The absolute position and direction of objects can be determined intuitively, creating a monitoring system with a rich sense of reality.

■Since the present invention uses a 3D projector as a monitor, it is possible to observe the slave side image, master arm 22, and operation display panel 37, which was impossible with a conventional system using a helmet with a built-in 3D monitor. It is. That is, in the robot monitoring device of the present invention, when the operator 20 moves his face and observes the operating state of the slave arm 13, the magnetic sensor 23, the three-dimensional motion measurement circuit 39, and the pan head control computer 34 detect the TV.
The camera platform 12 is driven to follow the operating state of the slave arm 13, and the image screen 25a on the video screen 25 moves in exactly the same direction as the operating direction of the slave arm 13. Since the postures of the two are the same, the operator 20 will be able to view the video screen 25a through the master arm 22, and the operator will be able to watch both at the same time.

(1) Furthermore, in the robot monitoring device of the present invention, the coordinate axes within the video screen 25a on the video screen 25 are
Operator 2 always focuses on video projector 17
It coincides with the fixed coordinate axis on the 0 side. Therefore, the operator 20 can move the slave arm 13 to a desired position by simply operating the master arm 22 in a desired direction within the video screen 25a.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of another embodiment of the present invention, in which the same parts as in each case are given the same reference numerals. In this embodiment, markers 40 are provided at appropriate locations on the head of the operator 20, for example, at one end of the stereoscope 21 and at the top of the helmet. The facial movements of the operator 20 are observed by a plurality of TV cameras 41 placed around the operator 20, and the facial movements are extracted as electrical signals through image processing of these images.
The signal is input to the three-dimensional motion measurement circuit shown in FIG. This embodiment also provides the same effects as the previously described embodiment, but since the movement of the operator's face is detected without using magnetism, it is suitable for use in places where strong magnetic fields exist. It is.

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above, in the robot monitoring device of the present invention, the direction and posture of the image on the video screen are
Since the field of view completely matches that of a 3D TV camera, the absolute position and direction of surrounding objects visible from the robot can be determined intuitively, creating a monitoring system with a rich sense of realism.

Furthermore, in the robot monitoring device of the present invention, when the operator follows the operating state of the slave arm while looking directly at the image of the slave arm on the video screen, the TV camera platform and video projector cloud are controlled by the movement of the operator's face. The table is operated in exactly the same direction as the slave arm, and the image on the video screen moves accordingly.Moreover, at this time, the postures of the master arm and slave arm are the same, so the operator can look through the master arm. The operator will be able to view both images at the same time. Furthermore, in the robot monitoring device of the present invention, the coordinate axes within the video screen on the video screen always coincide with the fixed coordinate axes on the operator side centered on the video projector. Therefore, the operator can move the slave arm to a desired position by simply operating the master arm in a desired direction within the video screen.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the slave side of the first embodiment of the present invention;
Figure 2 is a front view of the 3D TV camera section. FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing the main parts on the operator side. FIG. 4 is a schematic side view showing the entire operator side, FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of the drive/control system of the embodiment, FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing the entire operator side as seen from the rear, and FIG. 7 is a schematic side view showing the entire operator side.
The figure is a perspective view of main parts of a second embodiment of the present invention. 11...3D TV camera 12...T
V camera pan head 13...Slave arm 14
...Light source 17...Video projector 18...Video projector head 20...
... Operator 21 ... Three-dimensional scope
22... Master arm 23... Pole piece 24... Magnetic sensor 25...
・Video screen 30... General system computer 31... Master/slave control computer
32...Slave drive controller 33...
・Master drive controller 34... Pan head control computer 35... TV camera pan head drive controller 36
...Video projector drive controller 37...
...Operation display panel 39...Three-dimensional movement measurement circuit

Claims (1)

[Claims] A master/slave manipulator equipped with a multi-joint master arm and a multi-joint slave arm, a TV camera attached to the slave arm of the master/slave manipulator via a pan head capable of panning and tilting, and the master arm. A video projector installed on a video projector head having the same degree of freedom as the TV camera head on the side of the operator who operates the camera; a spherical video screen; means for controlling the drive of the master/slave manipulator; means for controlling the drive of the TV camera platform; and a means for driving and controlling the camera platform in accordance with the movement of the camera platform to maintain the direction and posture of the TV camera substantially similar to those of the video projector at all times, wherein the operator who operates the master arm A monitoring device for a robot, characterized in that the TV camera platform is driven by following the movement of a face directly viewing an image of a slave arm.