The UWA telerobot is a teleoperable

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...

belonging to the school of mechanical and civil engineering at the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany and various other facilitie ...

Development

The UWA telerobot is a historic landmark for the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

and The University of Western Australia. It was the first telerobot device made available for general use on the Internet in 1994. The UWA telerobot was originally developed as part of a PhD thesis by Kenneth TaylorTaylor, K
Web Telerobotics: Reducing complexity in Robotics
Retrieved on 2009-3-15 and was the subject of a later PhD by Barney Dalton.Dalton, B
Techniques for Web Telerobotics
Retrieved on 2009-3-15 The first robot on the Internet, a plastic toy robot with only 2 degrees of freedom, was placed online by a team under Ken Goldberg at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

only three weeks before the UWA team released their website. The USC robot only lasted for seven months. The UWA robot is still online today, although the original robot was replaced in 1996 and the robot is no longer available for unrestricted public access, though interested parties can request permission.

Implementation

The current UWA telerobot is an

ABB ABB Ltd. is a Swedish- Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to crea ...

IRB1400 model 6 DOF serial chain robot fitted with a pneumatic gripper attachment. The robot runs on a standard ABB S4 Robot Controller linked to a

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

server and which in turn communicates with a second server running

's RobComm software and a

National Instruments National Instruments Corporation, doing business as NI, is an American multinational company with international operation. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it is a producer of automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software. C ...

Labview Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. The graphical language is named "G"; not to be confused with G-c ...

application that was custom written for the task by James Trevelyan with assistance from

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

-based Icon Technologies and students. The robot forms part of the UWA telelabs project. The Telerobot has undergone many changes to its control structure over time. Originally controlled via static

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...

web pages using CGI, work by Dalton saw the introduction of an augmented reality

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

-based interface that met with limited success. Control is currently by way of a downloadable

LabVIEW Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. The graphical language is named "G"; not to be confused with G-c ...

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuabl ...

application that incorporates real-time video streaming, with access control provided by the Telelabs system.Newell, Jame
Implementing a remote laboratory for the Telerobot
Retrieved on 2009-3-15

Current status

The robot continues to be the basis for research and group projects undertaken by

Mechatronics Mechatronics engineering also called mechatronics, is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that focuses on the integration of mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering systems, and also includes a combination of robotics, electronics, ...

Engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

students and staff at UWA, Primarily involving the addition of new features or capabilities to the system. The robot is also used as a teaching aid for a course in mechanisms and multibody systems run by Karol Miller.Rea, S
Using telerobotics for remote kinematics experiments
Retrieved on 2009-3-15

Notes and references

External links

Telerobot Aiming Display and Reliability Project

Telerobot Foam Milling Project

Icon Technologies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uwa Telerobot Industrial robots Historical robots Telepresence robots 1994 robots Robots of Australia