Augmented Reality for Telemaintenance and -inspection in Force-Sensitive Industrial Robot Applications

Telematic solutions allow fast remote support in industrial robot work cells: Robotic experts can assist the local staff in work process modifications or in tracking down errors without having to actually travel to the remote site. In order to be able to perform such teleinspection and telemaintenance tasks the operator needs to establish a data connection to the robot and get an understanding of the remote work process, as well as of the transmitted data.This contribution introduces a telematic control system developed for remote monitoring and control of an industrial robot performing force-sensitive work applications. An Augmented Reality interface is proposed for intuitive representation of complex robotic data, allowing quick analysis of the current working cycle and process data and altering the robot's program remotely while still having a clear spatial reference to the work environment.