Towards more automation for remote maintenance

The CATROB telerobotic system as a kinematical prototype for remote handling in hazardous environments like a fusion reactor is described. It consists of an industrial robot, mounted on a gantry crane with two degrees of freedom. The basic functional principle of this system is the synthesis of sensory-guided automatic and operator-controlled manual operation in order to minimize the time needed for performing remote maintenance and inspection. The goal is to automize all preplannable operations and to support the operator in performing manual remote handling by a graphics based simulation system. In the present state, automatically bolting and unbolting of flanges and handling of plug connections is realized with CATROB. In the paper the software and hardware architecture of the system and its sensory equipment are described, and some preliminary results on the system performance are reported. (author). 12 refs, 10 figs