Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Industrial inspection robot use is booming, e.g., in oil and gas wells, for inspections from a safe, remote location. Although robot technology is maturing, human-machine interfaces are limited, often having only raw video feeds and simple joysticks to remotely control a robot. Improved interface technologies are needed to support operator awareness of remote robots within environments, to improve operation performance. Through this project we will invent and prototype next-generation robotic interfaces, providing operators with intuitive access to cutting edge robot localization technologies and algorithms. While robot localization - the knowledge of where a robot is within an environment - is an established research area, there is little work on how this technology can be used by non-expert robot operators. E.g., maps can be difficult to interpret, crucial details for real-world use is often omitted (e.g., uncertainty, error) and operators cannot provide input at run time (e.g., to mark an error). Further, industrial partner Inuktun Services Ltd. has indicated that existing packages do not work with their environments, e.g., robots in pipe networks or attached to boat hulls, where global features, common edges such as walls, corners, and doors, are missing. Our team expertise includes human-robot interaction and interface design (Dr. Young), human perception (Dr. Bruce), deep learning (Dr. Wang), and computer vision (Drs. Bruce, Wang) expertise, which will provide HQP with multi-disciplinary training in employable areas including robotics, computer vision, and interface design. We will prototype and evaluate novel localization interfaces and algorithms for practical industrial inspection robots. We will research interfaces to help operators interpret output from, and provide input to, localization software, and novel algorithms that provide sufficient uncertainty data, receive operator input, and work in our inspection scenario. As the Canadian robotics industry continues to emerge on the international scale, this project positions Inuktun Services Ltd. to be a leader in establishing Canada as an important player in next-generation robotic control interfaces.