By using the augmented reality technology A researcher at the Egyptian Russian University develops a robotic system to deal with radioactive isotopes.

By using the augmented reality technology
A researcher at the Egyptian Russian University develops a robotic system to deal with radioactive isotopes

Doctor Magdy Roman, a lecturer at the Department of Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Egyptian Russian University, has presented a new development for the traditional method of dealing with radioactive isotopes using a robotic system based on augmented reality technology. This research comes in cooperation with: Prof. Dr. Hassan Ibrahim Saleh and Dr. Ahmed Islam Suleiman, Department of Radiological Engineering at the Atomic Energy Authority, Prof. Dr. Mustafa Rostom Attia and Engineer Khaled Muhammad Ibrahim, Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport.Dr. Magdy stated that the production of radioactive isotopes is vital in the medical and industrial fields, and because of its increasing importance, the factories that produce them have spread overworld. The factories contain production cells, specially equipped to perform this dangerous process; it is usually controlled by a traditional master-and-slave system. This system requires well-trained operators to achieve this purpose, but we find that some tasks in exceptional circumstances may require a longer time than normal, which means the possibility of increasing the operators’ acquired radiation dose rate. This may also expose them to cognitive stress and the consequent possibility of human errors. Hence the idea of the research is to propose a robotic system to help operators perform their tasks remotely, thus protecting them from overdose and reducing human errors.Dr. Magdy Roman has indicated that the general objective of the research is to enable the user to communicate remotely with the robot inside the isotope production cell in a simple and intuitive way, enhanced by a stereo-vision system. The proposed approach relies on the use of computer capabilities in calculating the available distances and spaces and avoiding potential obstacles during the preparation procedure inside the cell. It also warns the operator of expected accidents and helping him to perform his task and manage it safely and in the correct way. More specifically, there are several operating modes in the proposed system. In the direct mode of operation, the robot’s movement is controlled by motion sensors mounted on the operator’s arm, in addition to the Kinect motion sensors in the vision system. Information from human intuitiveness and vision algorithms is combined to perform effective control of the robotic arm. In the indirect operation mode, the robot’s path is first prepared through the stereoscopic vision of the robot’s environment using Augmented Reality technology, and then a simulation of the robot’s path is made to ensure the safety of the task to be achieved before it is implemented on the robot’s arm. The role of augmented reality here is to provide the operator with important information during the implementation of the task, such as identifying objects inside the cell, their coordinates, avoiding collision with obstacles, and determining the robot’s workspace. For this purpose, a set of images of commonly used objects inside the production cell has been used to train a SNN type artificial neural network.

Dr. Magdy has explained that the research results have been published in the International Journal of Innovative Computing, Information and Control, and the Arab Journal of Nuclear Sciences and Applications.

It is worth mentioning that the researcher has several other researches in the field of control and programming of robots in nuclear applications, won the Best Presentation Award at the 19th International Conference on Mechatronics Engineering ICME 2017.

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