SBIR-STTR Award

The remote control engineering (RCE) task of the fuel recycle division at the oak ridge national laboratory (ORNL)is developing remote handling equipment for maintenance and repair of future nuclear facilities. These systems are based on man-in-the loop teleoperation featuring the advances servomanipulator. (ASM). Recently, the RCE task completed construction of a control room which would serve as the center of operations for ASM-based remote handling sytems. The human-machine interface provided by this control room will be an important factor in overall effectiveness of ASM -based teleoperators. Therefore, the ASM control room requires thorough testing and evaluation to insure that all necessary control functions are provided, all necessary information is displayed, inter-operator communication is of sufficiently high-quality, and controls/displays are provided in a safe and effective manner. The ASM control room must be evaluated in terms of its performance in remote maintenance scenarios and its effects on its users (i.e. ease of use, workload, fatigue). During phase i of the research, a method for evaluation of the ASM control room (and applicable to other control rooms for manipulator systems) would be developed. A preliminary evaluation of the ASM control room would be conducted, obviously sub-standard components would be identified, and a set of scenarios in which the ASM is expected to function would be developed. The method of evaluation will address three especially important problems. First, the dynamic nature of ASM interfaces (which are composed of menu-based touch screens) makes it necessary to evaluate the impact of menu organization and menu changes. Second, inter-operator communication will be an important performance factor and must be addressed. Third, the relative lack of previous research into the human-machine interface for servomanipulator handles makes it necessary to develop new methods for evaluating the performance of the ASM master controller handle.

Nuclear fuel cycle facilities employ remote manipulator systems for many of their operations. The evaluation during Phase II of the advanced servomanipulator (ASM) and advanced integrated maintenance system (AIMS) control station human-machine interface, incorporating the design improvements of Phase 1, will consist of three parts. The first part will investigate the performance of simulated remote operation tasks. Three tasks-visual inspection, hidden insertion of electrical connectors, and replacement of a large componentwere chosen for testing because they were representative of remote tasks, because they tested all components of the maintenance system, and because they required a high degree of coordination between the two operators. Performance will be evaluated by means of task completion time, operator errors, workload, and operator communication. The objective of this testing is to identify deficiencies and omissions in the humanmachine interface. The second part will redesign any deficient component in order to optimize the overall performance of the control station. This redesigned control station would then be tested to measure the degree of improvement. The third part will develop human performance models for the design of future interfaces. These will include models of movement kinematics, perceptual-motor coordination, and task sequencing and strategies.Anticapated Results Potential Commercial Applications as described by the awardee:The results should produce a framework for a coherent understanding of typical remote operations. This framework should enable analysis of the contribution of each part of the interface to overall performance in terms of human preferences and limitations. The identification of short-comings should allow for the commercial development of advanced components that could lead to significant improvements in performance for ASMs and AlMs control stations in the nuclear handling industry, nuclear power reactors and other high-hazard industrial activities.