Reliability Study of a Teleoperated Robotic System with Application to the Next Generation Munitions Handling System

The United States Air Force is currently developing an Advanced Technology Demonstrator (ATD) for the Next Generation Munitions Handling System (NGMH). The NGMH/ATD system is being designed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a teleoperated robotic manipulator. In this research, a reliability model for a general telerobotic manipulator is developed including: (1) human, (2) software, (3) hardware, and (4) kinematic components. Each of these components contributes towards the reliability of the system, where reliability is defined as the probability of the end-effector of the manipulator being within a certain error bound. The model provides a comparative measure of reliability based on a combination of two underlying models. A semi-Markov model is used for the human, software, and hardware components, while the kinematic reliability estimates are obtained through a separate simulation. The reliability model developed is not intended to be a predictive model, rather to provide a means of comparing different configurations of a telerobotic system.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH is the author of 'Reliability Study of a Teleoperated Robotic System with Application to the Next Generation Munitions Handling System', published 1997 under ISBN 9781423567509 and ISBN 1423567501.