Objective
The MAESTRO project aims at developing the use of telepresence for maintenance, installation and repair of mechanical (or electromechanical) equipment. It is particularly dedicated to the training of complex maintenance/installation scenarios for remote users, such as SMEs which cannot afford on-site complex training equipment.
The resulting technology should enable users to train themselves to deal with maintenance tasks by connecting to a "Virtual Showroom" where they can learn maintenance procedures through computer-augmented video-based telepresence. Techniques used will be high-speed networks, video-based telepresence and Augmented Reality.
User requirements have been collected from industrial partners (SMEs Car Bench and Betex) and other potential users interested in the exploitation of results. Possible scenarios have been defined (installation, training, maintenance and marketing).
A first MAESTRO system design has been derived from user requirements and application scenarios. Special focus has been attached to SME relevance and to maintain SME-applicability within project's design activities. Tools (distributed VR, Multimedia tools) and techniques (Teleoperation, Augmented Reality and Speech interaction techniques) have been investigated and the DOVRE system developed by Telenor Research Lab. has been chosen as the distributed VR platform to support the MAESTRO solution.
Regarding networking aspects, networked experiments of the DOVRE framework over LAN/WAN, 2b + d ISDN and PSTN were conducting and an overview on the IP over ATM techniques was examined in order to decide which is the most suitable for the Maestro system.
The MAESTRO contribution to standards has also been studied and reported. Various standards have been studied H.320 T.120 MPEG4, VRML and JAVA and the consortium has focused on the use of VRML and MPEG4 (SNHC) within the project.
Future work will mainly focus on the implementation of the MAESTRO system. Planned achievements (for next project year) may be described as follows:
investigation of mechanisms to maintain SME-applicability throughout the design cycle.
completion of MAESTRO system design.
specification and implementation of enhancements of the DOVRE platform to meet MAESTRO requirements. Some investigations have already been conducted on supporting robot arms and similar I/O devices through sensor mechanisms in Dovre. Future work will focus on integration of Video and Augmented Reality techniques mainly in the context of the mock-up.
development of the MAESTRO system based upon the enhanced version of DOVRE platform. At first specification and implementation of the main subsystems (the Teleoperation environment, the Multimedia Environment and the Distributed QoS support and Management) will be produced through the development of specific tools and techniques (Telepresence, Augmented Reality). Then as soon as limited-in-functionalities subsystems will be made available the MAESTRO solution will be progressively assembled for test and usage assessment:
a mock-up showing some of telepresence and multimedia functionalities will be produced(Sept 1997),
a fully functional prototype will be produced (Feb 1998).
Expected Impact
The implementation of industrial telepresence would be a considerable opportunity for supporting the industry and particularly SMEs across the EU, especially in rural areas. The remote training and remote maintenance services that can be offered by the MAESTRO system can reduce the isolation of SMEs in Europe's less advantaged regions helping them to upgrade their products. It should also be noted that enhanced customer support is a key factor for market penetration.
By developing industrial telepresence, the project is a good step for promoting teleworking and demonstrating that it can be applied not only to consumer services but also to industrial activities. While most teleworking projects have been dedicated to office work, the MAESTRO project should also contribute to promote
MAESTRO will also encourage the exploitation of advanced communications technology and will participate in promoting the use of CAD/CAM, virtual prototyping and remote monitoring.
Main contributions to the programme objectives:
Main deliverables
Tele-presence system for maintenance, installation and repair of mechanical equipment
Contribution to the programme
Provides rural area users and SMEs with low-cost training solutions
Technical Approach
The project will be implemented according to the following main steps:
Analysis of the requirements for communication links, user interfaces and computing support
Survey and analysis of available and emerging standards for multimedia document manipulation and transmission (e.g. MPEG4, MHEG, VRML, etc.)
Developing technologies, and integrating pre-existing solutions and components in a common tele-assistance prototype
Undertake subjective and objective evaluations of performance
Development and verification of demonstrators
Study of the traffic generated by such a complex interactive multimedia services to confirm the multiplexing gain achievable by means of efficient Call Admission Control
Summary of Trial
In order to demonstrate the benefits of the MAESTRO approach two different testbeds will be implemented. The testbeds will consist of a Customer Support Centre, placed in the plant of an SME manufacturing complex machinery, and a client host placed at a main customer's site, linked through the National Host.
Key Issues
The following technologies will be either investigated, developed or integrated within the MAESTRO platform:
a) broadband networking, both performance guaranteed (i.e. ATM) and bandwidth guaranteed (i.e. SDMS), including monitoring and adaptation of the Quality of Service
b) video-based telepresence
c) teleoperation techniques (e.g. simple robotic arms, joystick-based and/or dataglove-based teleoperation)
d) Augmented Reality and real-time registration of CAD models of the equipment on its video image
e) hypermedia data management for technical documentation
f) Human-Computer Interaction, based on speech interfaces
The specific teleoperation environment will consist of (a) an extended prototype of the equipment to be maintained (the target equipment), which is customised to allow remote control and extensive diagnostic, and of (b) auxiliary devices, such as manipulators and vision systems, used both for equipment servicing and for enhancing user interoperability. Marking techniques will allow real-time registration of a virtual model of the equipment on its video image captured by the remote camera. The virtual model will be annotated with links to a multimedia database containing specific information, e.g. operating and maintenance instructions, or functional data describing regular or faulty conditions. Speech recognition will be used to enter spoken commands (which are particularly relevant in the context of teleoperation as they enable the user to have hands-free access to information) while a specific low-cost joystick will be developed to control both the robot equipment and the remote camera.
An essential point is the ability to accurately locate the frame of reference of the prototype in order to display relevant information, such as enhancing CAD models or diagrams; this will be achieved by optical and/or electromagnetic techniques.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences databases
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering sensors optical sensors
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Coordinator
91404 Orsay
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.