On Wednesday 21 February the EPSRC RoboTIPS project enacted the third of our simulated accident scenarios in the BRL. This scenario focussed on an exoskeleton in an industrial environment. In the picture above we see Dan working, with the support of the wonderful Tribonix exoskeleton.
In our scenario, something then goes wrong, and Dan has fallen to the floor. He is attended by his manager Monica and paramedic Ben.
Following the simulated accident (in which no humans or robots were actually hurt), the accident was investigated by lead investigator Carl and co-investigator Jack. Here we see Jack and Carl interviewing expert witness Apollinaire, observed by RoboTIPS project lead Marina. In addition to witness testimony our investigators were also able to examine data logs collected from the exoskeleton during the simulated accident.
The simulated accident scenario was a huge success. The various roles (not all of which are shown in the photos here) were acted brilliantly by our volunteers Dan Read, Ashwin Chandapur, Monica Monica, Surin Machaiah, Ben Allen and Dr Apollinaire Etoundi. And despite a complicated scenario which included human-human as well as human-robot interaction, our accident investigators Prof Carl Macrae and Jack Hughes were able to deduce, with reasonable accuracy, what happened and why. We are especially grateful to Romain Derval and Filip Hanus, co-founders of Tribonix, for both kindly agreeing to the use of their exoskeleton and generously working with RoboTIPS during the planning and enactment of this simulation.
Note: this scenario was subject to Research Ethics Committee approval CATE-2324-218.
