Browsing by Author "Rahman, Miftahur"

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    An autonomous rail-road amphibious robotic system for railway maintenance using sensor fusion and mobile manipulator
    (Elsevier, 2023-08-02) Liu, Haochen; Rahman, Miftahur; Rahimi, Masoumeh; Starr, Andrew; Durazo-Cardenas, Isidro; Ruiz-Carcel, Cristobal; Ompusunggu, Agusmian; Hall, Amanda; Anderson, Robert
    The current maintenance of railway infrastructure replies heavily on human involvement, requiring possession of the track section during maintenance, resulting in high costs and inefficient execution. This paper proposes an autonomous rail-road amphibious robotic system for railway inspection and maintenance tasks. By virtue of its road and rail-autonomous mobility, it is able to execute the complete maintenance execution flow in multiple phases. The system provides flexible track job location access, low-cost maintenance execution, and reduced track network possession. The payload mobile manipulator and sensor fusion enhance the system's capabilities for multiple types of inspection and repair. The design of a command and control system was guided by a rule-based expert system strategy to enable remote operation of the whole system. The developed demonstrator of a track wheel accompanied unmanned ground vehicle was integrated and demonstrated in both operational and realistic track environments with multiple testing activities of remote operation, navigation, accurate job detection, inspection, and repair, confirming effective job completion and logical human interaction. The proposed method produces an outstanding hardware-software integrated robotic inspection and repair system with a high level of technological readiness for autonomous railway maintenance and intelligent railway asset management.
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    Challenges for a railway inspection and repair system from railway infrastructure
    (IEEE, 2023-01-16) Rahman, Miftahur; Rahimi, Masoumeh; Starr, Andrew; Durazo-Cardenas, Isidro; Hall, Amanda; Anderson, Robert
    Robots and automation techniques are used in many industries for a long period because of the economic advantages and efficiency. Though the railway has a long history compared to other transportation systems, it still lacks wide application of modern technologies such as robots and AI. Track maintenance using robotic technologies has gained some attraction from both infrastructure managers and researchers due to safety and cost benefits. A Railway Inspection and Repair System (RIRS) has been proposed using commercially available Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) and an industrial manipulator for the railway track inspection and repair tasks. The use of a specially designed trolley enables the on-track and off-track navigation capability of RIRS. The infrastructure in railway is very diversified and unique in size, shape, and remoteness compared to other industries. This research investigates the unique challenges to the operation of RIRS imposed by the railway infrastructure.
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    data for A Railway Track Reconstruction Method Using Robotic Vision on a Mobile Manipulator: A Proposed Strategy
    (Cranfield University, 2023-02-06 13:06) Rahman, Miftahur
    This is the dataset for the prooposed method. Captured images were used in Visual SfM software to create the 3D model. Then scaling has been corrected using prior standards information of railway track. A point cloud data has been created from the RGB-D camera. Finally, the reconstructed model was fused in the RGB-D perception.
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    Development of a low cost system for lifting related injury analysis
    (IEEE, 2021-05-10) Hasan, Mahmudul; Rahman, Miftahur
    In the developing countries, most of the Manual Material Handling (MMH) related tasks are labor-intensive. It is not possible for these countries to assess injuries during lifting heavy weight, as multi-camera motion capture, force plate and electromyography (EMG) systems are very expensive. In this study, we proposed an easy to use, portable and low cost system, which will help the developing countries to evaluate injuries for their workers. The system consists of two hardware and three software. The joint angle profiles are collected using smartphone camera and Kinovea software. The vertical Ground Reaction Force (GRF) is collected using Wii balance board and Brainblox software. Finally, the musculoskeletal analysis is performed using OpenSim Static Optimization tool to find the muscle force. The system will give us access to a comprehensive biomechanical analysis, from collecting joint angle profiles to generating muscle force profiles. This proposed framework has the potential to assess and prevent MMH related injuries in developing countries.
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    Investigating precision and accuracy of a robotic inspection and repair system
    (SSRN, 2021-10-20) Rahman, Miftahur; Liu, Haochen; Rahimi, Masoumeh; Ruiz Carcel, Cristobal; Kirkwood, Leigh; Durazo-Cardenas, Isidro; Starr, Andrew
    Robot integration in railway maintenance steps a prominent pavement in high-efficient and low-cost job execution for the infrastructure management. To achieve practical and diverse inspection and repair railway job, a robot manipulator on a locomotive platform is one of the best options. A lot of research has been conducted to find the accuracy and precision of industrial robotic manipulator where the manipulator base is fixed. This paper initiates an exploration of the accuracy and precision of a Robotic Inspection and Repair System (RIRS), which is a novel robotic railway maintenance system integrated with an industrial manipulator (UR10e) with 6 degree-of-freedom, mounting on an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) (Warthog) and specially designed trolley. In this research, a mimic track visual inspection test using QR code detection is adopted and implemented by an arm-mounted monocular camera. Then a sequential pose moves with multiple payload weights on the manipulator end has been performed as a performance measurement of repair jobs using a vision-based position tracking algorithm. The measurement results demonstrate that RIRS can maintain accurate and consistent performance in both defect position inspection and repair moves with diverse payloads. For inspection the positional error was only 0.27% while for repair moves the end-effector can reach the same position within 1mm. This research establishes a foundation for system command & control development and supporting more practical railway jobs deployment towards full autonomy for RIRS in the future.
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    Localisation and navigation framework for autonomous railway robotic inspection and repair system
    (SSRN, 2021-10-20) Rahimi, Masoumeh; Liu, Haochen; Rahman, Miftahur; Ruiz Carcel, Cristobal; Durazo-Cardenas, Isidro; Starr, Andrew; Hall, Amanda; Anderson, Robert
    In the path towards the intelligent industrial 4.0, the railway industry is keen to develop intelligent asset management strategies for digitalization and smart management for rail infrastructure. It aims to both reduce the cost and exposure of human-labor, associated with track maintenance risk, as well as increase the autonomy and accuracy for the railway inspection and repair job. A Robotic Inspection and Repair System (RIRS) is proposed to undertake the automated railway maintenance consisting of the autonomous off-track travel between base workshop and track, road-rail conversion, autonomous on-track inspection, and repair as well as remote communicating to railway signaling system and infrastructure system. This paper presents a localization and navigation framework for this new autonomous system; applied to the mentioned railway maintenance job. This system comprises a commercial Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV, named Warthog) with a robotic manipulator (UR10e), and multiple onboard sensors including Lidar, camera, RTK GNSS, IMU, wheel odometry, and multiple types of cameras. An adaptive trolley is also designed for the purpose of road-rail conversion. This research also focuses on how to increase accuracy for the support of track defect detection and localization.
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    A practical demonstration of autonomous ultrasonic testing for rail flaws inspection
    (Cranfield University, 2022-11-08) He, Feiyang; Durazo-Cardenas, Isidro; Liu, Haochen; Rahman, Miftahur; Rahimi, Masoumeh; Starr, Andrew; Poulter, Michael
    This study established the viability of autonomous ultrasonic inspections at the technology readiness level 5 (TRL 5). An autonomous ultrasonic rail inspection prototype was developed using commercially available ultrasonic instruments and an unmanned on-track vehicle platform consisting of a Clearpath's Warthog and a road-rail vehicle (RRV) trolley. The prototype was designed to travel back and forth on a segment of the test track during the test programme. Repeated fault checks were able to discover seeded artificial flaws at depths of 23 and 27 mm. The detection was indicated by an audio alarm triggered when the ultrasonic emissions exceeded the threshold of the detector gate. A plain text message sent over local area network (LAN) WIFI to a virtual server was also used to demonstrate the transmission of detection messages. The repeatability of the inspection prototype's positioning relative to the problem was confirmed using odometry, global navigation satellite system (GNSS), and positional measurements. The results of the three measurement methods were in good agreement, and the positioning inaccuracy varied between 3 and 7 cm. This study demonstrated the potential of autonomous ultrasonic checks and gave recommendations for further work and limitations.
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    A railway track reconstruction method using robotic vision on a mobile manipulator: a proposed strategy
    (Elsevier, 2023-03-21) Rahman, Miftahur; Liu, Haochen; Masri, Mohammed; Durazo-Cardenas, Isidro; Starr, Andrew
    Autonomous robot integration in railways infrastructure maintenance accelerates the digitization and intelligence of infrastructure survey & maintenance, providing high-efficiency and low-cost execution. This paper proposes a health assessment based on 3D reconstruction technology for railway track maintenance using a mobile robotic sensing platform. By combining multiple sensing and taking advantage of a robotic manipulator, a digital model of the target track components is built by a robot-actuated vision system which provides better 3D structural and surface condition reconstruction. Global geo-location and surrounding laser scanning are integrated to reinforce the digital completeness of the model for intelligent management. The new method consists of the following steps: First, according to scheduled maintenance tasks, a Robotics Inspection and Repair System (RIRS) navigates to the task location and uses the onboard depth camera for positioning. Then robot-mounted vision system is guided with an automated trajectory to build the 3D reconstruction of the track or repair object using the vision modeling technique. Finally, the 3D reconstructed model is fused with surrounding mapping of depth vision and Lidar scanning. Both laboratory tests and a realistic track test validated the feasibility of the proposed method by creating an accurate 3D reconstructed model. The modeled rail steel section size is quantitively compared with the ground truth in dimension, demonstrating good accuracy with a size error of less than 0.3 cm. The main contribution includes: (1) unmanned automatic 3D reconstruction by a robotic mobile manipulator, (2) the technique trims the reconstruction details & data to the specific maintenance goal or components, which supports the infrastructure maintenance towards the high-detailed & target-oriented digital management. This combination strategy of robotic automation and sensor fusion lies down a promising foundation for automated digital twin establishment for railway maintenance with autonomous RIRS, and upgrades technology readiness and digital intelligence for maintenance management
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    A review on the prospects of mobile manipulators for smart maintenance of railway track
    (MDPI, 2023-05-25) Rahman, Miftahur; Liu, Haochen; Durazo-Cardenas, Isidro; Starr, Andrew; Hall, Amanda; Anderson, Robert
    Inspection and repair interventions play vital roles in the asset management of railways. Autonomous mobile manipulators possess considerable potential to replace humans in many hazardous railway track maintenance tasks with high efficiency. This paper investigates the prospects of the use of mobile manipulators in track maintenance tasks. The current state of railway track inspection and repair technologies is initially reviewed, revealing that very few mobile manipulators are in the railways. Of note, the technologies are analytically scrutinized to ascertain advantages, unique capabilities, and potential use in the deployment of mobile manipulators for inspection and repair tasks across various industries. Most mobile manipulators in maintenance use ground robots, while other applications use aerial, underwater, or space robots. Power transmission lines, the nuclear industry, and space are the most extensive application areas. Clearly, the railways infrastructure managers can benefit from the adaptation of best practices from these diversified designs and their broad deployment, leading to enhanced human safety and optimized asset digitalization. A case study is presented to show the potential use of mobile manipulators in railway track maintenance tasks. Moreover, the benefits of the mobile manipulator are discussed based on previous research. Finally, challenges and requirements are reviewed to provide insights into future research.
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    Towards an autonomous RIRS: design, structure investigation and framework
    (IEEE, 2021-04-02) Rahman, Miftahur; Liu, Haochen; Durazo-Cardenas, Isidro; Starr, Andrew; Hall, Amanda; Anderson, Robert
    Automated robots have been deeply embedded in many industries for decades. Autonomous railway maintenance is attracting more attention, but few robotic technologies are used in rolling stock inspection and repair. Due to geometrical differences between rail and road, wheeled robots still need to fulfill research and deployment gaps for application in railway track maintenance. This research is intended to design an autonomous Robotic Inspection and Repair System (RIRS) for unmanned track maintenance. It mainly employs commercial Warthog Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), Universal Robot (e.g., UR10e) manipulator, and multiple onboard sensors to achieve navigation to track, road-rail conversion, and on-track inspection and repair. With the support of a trolley, RIRS will achieve the ability to operate both on-track and off-track. This research also investigates the system structure of the on-track inspection and repair by considering the dynamic degree-of-freedom of both UGV wheels and the joints of robot manipulator. The redundancy of joints for the mobile manipulator has been reduced by proposing simplified joints which will improve the performance and efficiency. This research analyses the dynamic principles of a new maintenance system that will be deployed and tested in a prototype RIRS system in future work.