The radioactive environments can be significantly different from each other depending on the dose rate emitted and with them the requirements of the manipulators or robots used within them. In order to cope with the less demanding doses, it is likely enough to mount a hard-rad force/torque sensor in the robotic gripper, increasing with this the total cost of the robot or developing a customized shielding for a conventional sensor equipped with amplifier. When the radiation dose rate becomes very high, a hydraulic solution can be implemented with the consequent leaking risk. If that risk is wanted to be totally discarded as well as to maintain a solution with components off-the-shelf, when the dose rate increases such as in ITER-like projects, a sensorless approach can be used. This term indicates the indirect end-effector’s force and actuator’s torques estimation without using force and torque sensors. My research has proposed a sensorless force estimation of industrial robots applied to teleoperation in radioactive environments. Read more ›