Advanced Man-machine Interfaces And Control Architecture For Dexterous Teleoperations

Abstract

will perform complex tasks under challenging operational constraints. Important applications include platform servicing, payload deployment-and-retrieval, underseas salvage, and telescience -- all of which are casually structured, non-repetitive activities that require good perception, planning, and control dexterity in the face of changing environmental conditions. For the foreseeable future, teleoperations, versus automation, will be the achievable system solution. Significant technical innovation and experimentation is needed to overcome control problems arising from data rate limitations, time delay, mobile platform and contact dynamics; further, operator workloads and training requirements must be reduced to viable levels. We have been developing a telerobotic system compvting architecture and supporting man-machine interfaces to address a number of these issues, as envisioned for future space servicing, construction, and science scenarios, Examples of work to date include: 1) 3-D graphic simulators for task preview, training, andprediction; 2) a distributed “local-remote” telemanipulation control architecture and supporting operator interfaces that enable dexterous dual-arm manipulation in position, force, rate, and compliance modes, also, flexible viewing; 3) computer-assists for shared task control and force control stabilization under time delay. We survey the key technical developments in this work, illustrating our progress with experimental results taken from generic laboratory tasks. We also describe our related laboratory telerobotic simulation of the 1984 NASA Solar Maximum Satellite EVA Repair mission. Ongoing work in support of the latter includes development of a new dual eight d.0.f. arm telemanipulator, design of a hierarchically structured graphics user interface allowing rapid on-line selection and parameterization of control modes, and a virtual task environment for high-fidelity stereo graphics task preview with simulated contact forces. Underseas robotics, like its space counterpart,