Human machine interface to manually drive rhombic like vehicles such as transport casks in ITER

Abstract

In nuclear facilities, such as the experimental fusion reactor ITER, the cargo transfer operations can be performed by autonomous guided vehicles under remote supervision. In ITER, these vehicles can reach up to 100 tons and, with a rhombic-like configuration, have to move in cluttered scenarios. In case of failure, the vehicles have to be manually guided. This paper presents three solutions for the teleoperation of rhombic-like vehicles. Two set of devices were used to test each solution: one is based on a gamepad and the other is based on a joystick with a rotational disc specially designed for this purpose. The solutions were experimented by the developer and by 12 users without prior experience on rhombic-like vehicles. The experiments were performed in a software simulator that provides 2D maps of the test facility and simulates the kinematics of the vehicles in real time. The main conclusions are reported.