Summary
2021
Session Number:TS4
Session:
Number:TS4-1
Robotic Assistance Operation for Effective On-Site Network Maintenance Works_
Takayuki Warabino, Yusuke Suzuki, Tomohiro Otani,
pp.132-137
Publication Date:2021/9/8
Online ISSN:2188-5079
Summary:
While the introduction of softwarelization technologies such as SDN and NFV transfers the main focus of network management from hardware to software, the network operators still have to deal with various and numerous network and computing equipment located in network centers. Toward fully automated network management, we believe that a robotic approach will be significant, meaning that robots will handle network-facility management works on behalf of humans. This paper focuses on robotic assistance for on-site network maintenance works. Currently, attendance at the on-site vendor’s works (e.g., hardware check, hardware installation/replacement and high impact update of software etc.) is one of the major tasks of network operators. The network operators monitor the work progress for human error prevention and safety improvement. In order to reduce the burden of this, we propose three functionalities, namely attendance at on-site meetings, progress check by periodical patrol, and remote control of robots, which support the various forms of attendance. The paper presents our implementation of enabling these supports, and reports the results of experiments conducted in a commercial network center.