MARSBot: A Bristle-Bot Microrobot with Augmented Reality Steering Control for Wireless Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

Microrobots are effective for monitoring infrastructure in narrow spaces. However, they have limited computing power, and most of them are not wireless and stable enough for accessing infrastructure in difficult-to-reach areas. In this paper, we describe the fabrication of a microrobot with bristle-bot locomotion using a novel centrifugal yaw-steering control scheme. The microrobot operates in a network consisting of an augmented reality headset and an access point to monitor infrastructures using augmented reality (AR) haptic controllers for human–robot collaboration. For the development of the microrobot, the dynamics of bristle-bots in several conditions were studied, and multiple additive manufacturing processes were investigated to develop the most suitable prototype for structural health monitoring. Using the proposed network, visual data are sent in real time to a hub connected to an AR headset upon request, which can be utilized by the operator to monitor and make decisions in the field. This allows the operators wearing an AR headset to inspect the exterior of a structure with their eyes, while controlling the surveying robot to monitor the interior side of the structure.

Indoor Infrastructure Maintenance Framework Using Networked Sensors, Robots, and Augmented Reality Human Interface

“…Additionally, AR systems can offer remote guidance to amateur personnel for routine maintenance tasks [26], reducing training time and providing superior effectiveness when compared to Virtual Reality (VR) in multi-level and complex maintenance tasks [27]. A variety of interfaces have been developed for AR, such as those used in equipment maintenance and diagnostics [28], intuitive teleportation of bimanual robots [29], and steering the MARSBot microrobot for the inspection of tight spaces and Unistrut channels [30]. AR platforms offer a variety of applications such as interacting with RFID [31] and the inspection of hard-to-reach areas using robots for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) industries [32].…”