JP2002096282A - Remote control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To simply, easily and reliably control the motion with high accuracy. SOLUTION: Motion command information of a manipulator body 10 is generated corresponding to the control period thereof, a plurality of control periods of the motion command information are packed to generate the command information pack. This command information pack is transmitted to each pack, the command information pack is stored in a plurality of packs and an information storage unit 14. The command information is successively taken out of the plurality of command information packs to control the drive of the manipulator body 10.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a manipulator mounted on, for example, a spacecraft to construct various structures in outer space or to perform an exchange operation including an installation operation of an object to be subjected to various space experiments. The present invention relates to a remote operation system suitable for remotely operating an operation target such as.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the field of space development, a space station in which humans can reside is constructed in space, and this space station is used as a space base to implement maintenance and inspection of other spacecraft, Plans are underway to conduct various space experiments. In such a space station construction concept, it is considered to use a manipulator system that executes a work manipulator by remotely operating a work manipulator on behalf of a human to carry out and assemble building materials.

In such a manipulator system, a work area of the manipulator is photographed by a surveillance camera, and the image data is displayed on a monitor arranged on the ground. Is operated, the operation command information is generated.

The operation command information generated on the ground is transmitted to the transmitting / receiving station via a communication network provided on the ground to a predetermined transmitting / receiving station, and transmitted from the transmitting / receiving station to outer space. Has adopted a remote control method for controlling the operation of the manipulator.

[0005] However, in the above remote operation method, the control cycle of the manipulator is inconsistent with the control cycle of the manipulator, the load condition of the terrestrial communication network, the communication cycle from the transmitting / receiving station to outer space, and the known communication fluctuation. Since it is difficult to perform control to match the cycle, there is a problem that the reliability of the operation control is poor.

[0006] Such a situation is not limited to the manipulator system, and is the same when, for example, rendezvous docking between space vehicles in space is performed remotely from a ground station or the like.

[0007]

As described above, in the conventional remote control method, since the remote control of the manipulator requires skill, the operation is very complicated and it is difficult to perform a high-precision operation. Have a problem.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has as its object to provide a remote operation system which is simple and can easily realize highly reliable and accurate operation control. I do.

[0009]

According to the present invention, an operation target whose operation is controlled at a predetermined control cycle based on the operation command information, and operation command information of the operation target are generated corresponding to the control cycle. Command information generating means, information packing means for performing a packing process on a plurality of control cycles of the operation command information generated by the command information generating means to generate a command information pack, and packing the command information pack generated by the information packing means An information communication means for transmitting each command information pack, a plurality of instruction information packs communicated via the information communication means, an information storage means for storing a plurality of instruction information packs, and a state in which a predetermined number of instruction information packs are stored in the information storage means. A drive control means for sequentially taking out the command information from the command information pack and controlling the operation of the operation target is provided to constitute a remote operation system.

According to the above configuration, the operation target is controlled by the data drive control means by taking out the command information of the command information pack stored in the information storage means at each control cycle and controlling the operation. And the communication cycle of the information communication means is not affected by the difference in the control cycle. Therefore, it is possible to control the operation of a distant operation target with substantially the same accuracy as operating the operation target at hand, and it is possible to improve the reliability of the remote operation control.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a manipulator system to which a remote control system according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.
Is mounted on the spacecraft 11 so as to be remotely controllable. The drive control unit 12 is connected to the manipulator body 10.

A transmission / reception unit 13 is connected to the drive control unit 12, and a command information pack received via the transmission / reception unit 13 is temporarily stored in an information storage unit 14, which will be described later, as shown in FIG. Based on the operation command information packed in the command information pack stored in the information storage unit 14, the operation of the manipulator body 10 is controlled at its control cycle.

The transmitting / receiving section 13 corresponds to, for example, a transmitting / receiving station 15 arranged on the ground, and receives a command information pack signal transmitted from the transmitting / receiving station 15. Transmitting / receiving station 15
Are connected to a terrestrial base station 17 via a terrestrial communication network 16. The ground base station 17 is provided with an operation device 18 and an information transmission / reception unit 19.

The operating device 18 is provided with, for example, an operating section 181 and a monitor 182. The monitor 182 receives image information taken by an image pickup camera (not shown) mounted on the manipulator body 10 and transmits and receives the information to the transmitting and receiving section 13, The information is input and displayed via the station 15 and the ground communication network 16. When, for example, an operator (not shown) operates the monitor 182 while looking at the monitor 182, the operation device 18 generates operation command information corresponding to the operation and generates the operation command information.
9 is output.

A packing processor 191 is connected to the information transmitter / receiver 19 as shown in FIG.

The packing processing unit 191 receives the input operation command information based on the arm control cycle ΔTARM of the manipulator body 10, the communication cycle ΔTCOM of the terrestrial communication network 16 and the transmitting / receiving station 15, and the fluctuation of the communication time based on ΔTJIT. int (ΔTCOM / ΔTARM) + α1... Packing processing is performed on a plurality of input operation command information based on the equation (1) in time series to generate a command information pack.

Here, the CPAC is a packing processing unit 19.
The number (number) of operation commands to be packed by 2, int
Indicates a truncation process, and α1 indicates a correction amount.

The correction amount α1 is used to adjust the number of operation command information for transmitting the least common multiple of both at a time interval and the number of operation command information to be used when ΔTCOM / ΔTARM cannot be divided. .

Specifically, for example, if the arm control interval is 3
(Sec), when the communication interval is 10 (sec), int (10/3) = 3 is the number of packings from the above equation (1), but the actual transmission amount is smaller than the amount used in transmission. Therefore, if this is not done, the operation command information will eventually be lost.

Therefore, the number of the transmitted operation command information and the number of the operation command information actually provided for operation control of the manipulator body 10 are equal to the time interval of the least common multiple of both the intervals: 30
(Sec) (number of operation command information used in actual control:
10), command operation information to be transmitted: 3 × 3 = 9 (pieces), so that one command operation information is set once every three times, and (3, 3, 3 + 1), (3, 3) , 3 + 1), (3,
3, 3 + 1)... And the one command operation information corresponds to the correction amount α1.

The command information pack generated by the packing processing unit 192 of the information transmitting / receiving unit 19 is stored in the terrestrial communication network 1.
6 to the transmitting / receiving unit 13 via the transmitting / receiving station 17. The transmission / reception unit 13 outputs the received command information pack to the drive control unit 12. The drive control unit 12 temporarily stores the input command information pack in the information storage unit 14, extracts the operation command information in time series corresponding to the arm control cycle ΔTARM of the manipulator body 10, and controls the drive of the manipulator body 10. .

In the information storage unit 14, the number of operation command information to be stored is set based on, for example, CBUF = int {(ΔTCOM + ΔTJIT × 2) / ΔTARM} + α2 (2)

Here, CBUF is the number of pieces of operation command information to be stored, and α2 is a margin of an area for preventing the operation command information from becoming empty.

In the information storage section 14, the storage area is set by adding a fluctuation to the storage of one command information pack based on the above equation (2). The operation command information is appropriately set in accordance with the frequency of fluctuation so that the operation command information does not become empty even when the time is continuously shortened.

For example, the information storage unit 14 is set such that the number of stored operation command information is half of the storage area in the steady state of the manipulator body 10. Thereby, the information storage unit 14 may receive more operation command information due to communication fluctuation,
Or even if you reach a small amount,
Compensation of the operation command information to the drive control unit 12 becomes possible, and stable operation control corresponding to the arm control period ΔTARM becomes possible.

In the above configuration, the manipulator body 1
In order to execute the remote operation 0, first, image information near the distal end of the manipulator body 10 is acquired by the camera (not shown), and the image information is supplied to the transmission / reception station 15 via the transmission / reception unit 13. Is done. Then, the transmitting / receiving station 15
Transmits the image information to the ground base station 17 via, for example, the transmitting / receiving station 15 and the ground communication network 16.

The ground base station 17 displays the image information on the monitor 182 of the operating device 18, and the operator operates the operating unit 1 of the operating device 18 while looking at the screen of the monitor 182.
Operate 81. Here, the operating device 18 is
The operation command information is generated in conjunction with the operation 1 and output to the information transmitting / receiving unit 19. Then, the information transmitting / receiving unit 19 outputs the input operation command information to the packing processing unit 191.

The packing processing unit 191 performs packing processing on the input operation command information based on the above equation (1) to generate a command information pack, and outputs the command information pack to the information transmitting / receiving unit 19. The information transmission / reception unit 19 outputs the input command information pack to the transmission / reception station 15 via the terrestrial communication network 16.

The transmitting / receiving station 15 sequentially outputs the input command information packs to the transmitting / receiving unit 13 of the spacecraft 11. The transmission / reception unit 13 transmits the input command information pack to the drive control unit 12
Output to

The drive control unit 12 stores a plurality of packs of the input command information in the information storage unit 14 in order. Then, for example, in a state where the operation command information is stored in about half or more of the storage area of the information storage unit 14, the drive control unit 12 transmits the operation command information stored in the information storage unit 14 to the arm control cycle of the manipulator body 10. The manipulator body 10 is taken out by ΔTARM and drive-controlled.

Thus, the drive control unit 12 controls the drive of the manipulator body 10 at its arm control period ΔTARM without being affected by fluctuations in communication between the transmission / reception station 15 and the terrestrial communication network 16. A stable remote operation of the main body 10 is executed.

As described above, the remote operation system generates operation command information of the manipulator body 10 corresponding to the control cycle, and performs packing processing for the plurality of control cycles of the operation command information to execute the command information pack. The command information pack is transmitted for each pack, the plurality of command information packs are stored in the information storage unit 14, and the command information is sequentially taken out from the plurality of command information packs, and the manipulator body The drive control is performed in ten arm control cycles.

According to this, the manipulator body 10
For example, a plurality of command information packs transmitted from the ground are stored in a plurality of packs, and operation command information is taken out from the plurality of command information packs at each arm control cycle and the operation is controlled, whereby the arm is controlled. The drive is controlled without being affected by the difference between the control cycle and the communication cycle with the ground. As a result, the remote manipulator body 10 is
Since the operation can be controlled with almost the same accuracy as the operation at hand, the reliability of the remote operation control can be improved.

In the above embodiment, the manipulator body 10 constructed in the outer space is used as a control object.
The description has been given of the case where the present invention is applied to a system that is remotely controlled from the ground. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, in space, a space vehicle such as an artificial satellite is remotely controlled to cause so-called rendezvous docking between space vehicles. It is also applicable in a system.

In the above-described embodiment, the case where the present invention is applied to a system for remotely operating between outer space and the ground has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The present invention can be applied to a system that is remotely operated, and substantially the same effect can be expected.

Therefore, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various other modifications can be made in the implementation stage without departing from the scope of the invention. Further, the above embodiments include inventions at various stages, and various inventions can be extracted by appropriately combining a plurality of disclosed constituent elements.

For example, even if some components are deleted from all the components shown in the embodiment, the problem described in the section of the problem to be solved by the invention can be solved, and the effects described in the effects of the invention can be solved. Is obtained, a configuration from which this configuration requirement is deleted can be extracted as an invention.

[0039]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a remote control system which is simple and can easily realize highly reliable and accurate operation control.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram for explaining a configuration of a remote operation system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a manipulator drive system of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a ground operation system of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 ... manipulator body. 11 ... Spacecraft. 12 ... drive control unit. 13: transmitting / receiving unit. 14 Information storage unit. 15 ... transmitting / receiving station. 16 ... ground communication network. 17 ... ground base station. 18 ... operating device. 181 ... operation unit. 182 ... monitor. 19: transmitting / receiving unit. 191: Packing processing unit.

Claims (5)

[Claims] An operation object to be operation-controlled at a predetermined control cycle based on the operation command information; command information generating means for generating operation command information of the operation object in accordance with the control cycle; Information packing means for performing packing processing on a plurality of control cycles of the operation command information generated by the information generating means to generate a command information pack; information communication means for transmitting the command information pack generated by the information packing means for each pack; An information storage means for storing a plurality of instruction information packs communicated via the information communication means; and a predetermined number of instruction information packs stored in the information storage means. A remote control system comprising: a drive control unit for sequentially extracting information and controlling operation of the operation target. 2. The remote control system according to claim 1, wherein said information packing means sets a packing number of the command information based on the communication cycle and the control cycle. 3. The information storage unit sets an area for storing a command information pack based on a communication cycle of the information communication unit, a control cycle of the operation target, and communication fluctuation. Item 3. The remote control system according to item 1 or 2. 4. The remote operation system according to claim 1, wherein said information packing means performs a packing process of the command information in a time series to generate a command information pack. 5. The operation object is deployed in outer space,
The remote control system according to claim 1, wherein the command information generating unit is provided in a ground station.