[2303.16055] Augmented Reality Remote Operation of Dual Arm Manipulators in Hot Boxes

In nuclear isotope and chemistry laboratories, hot cells and gloveboxes
provide scientists with a controlled and safe environment to perform
experiments. Working on experiments in these isolated containment cells
requires scientists to be physically present. For hot cell work today,
scientists manipulate equipment and radioactive material inside through a
bilateral mechanical control mechanism. Motions produced outside the cell with
the master control levers are mechanically transferred to the internal grippers
inside the shielded containment cell. There is a growing need to have the
capability to conduct experiments within these cells remotely. A simple method
to enable remote manipulations within hot cell and glovebox cells is to mount
two robotic arms inside a box to mimic the motions of human hands. An AR
application was built in this work to allow a user wearing a Microsoft HoloLens
2 headset to teleoperate dual arm manipulators by grasping robotic end-effector
digital replicas in AR from a remote location. In addition to the real-time
replica of the physical robotic arms in AR, the application enables users to
view a live video stream attached to the robotic arms and parse a 3D point
cloud of 3D objects in their remote AR environment for better situational
awareness. This work also provides users with virtual fixture to assist in
manipulation and other teleoperation tasks.