Robot vision system R&D for ITER blanket remote-handling system

Maruyama, Takahito; Aburadani, Atsushi; Takeda, Nobukazu; Kakudate, Satoshi; Nakahira, Masataka; Tesini, A.*

For maintenance of ITER, a system to remotely handle the shield blanket modules is necessary because of high -ray field. Blanket handling will be carried out by robotic devices such as power manipulators. The manipulator should have a non-contact sensing system to install and grasp a module, and the manipulator is required to be accurate within 5 mm in translational motion and 1 degree in rotational motion. The Robot Vision System (RV) was adopted as the non-contact sensing system. To satisfy the requirements, three widely used methods of RV were adopted: Stereo Vision, Visual Feedback and Visual Servoing. Stereo Vision is a RV method using two cameras. In Visual Feedback, the manipulator moves to the target position in many sequential steps. In Visual Servoing, the manipulator moves in order to fit the current picture with the target picture. Also, note that it is completely dark in the vacuum vessel and lighting is needed. Tests for grasping a module using those three methods were carried out and the measuring error of the RV system was studied. The results of these tests were that the accuracy of the manipulator's movements was within 1 mm and 0.3 degrees using RV. This satisfies the requirements; therefore, it is concluded that RV is suitable as the non-contact sensing system for the ITER BRHS.