Supervisory telerobotics testbed for unstructured environments

Abstract

Abstract This article describes a telerobotics testbed for performing tasks such as assembly and repair of spacecraft in unstructured environments. This fully operational multiarm system can operate in teleoperated or supervisory control modes, as well as mixed shared‐control modes, thus enabling operations in totally to partially unstructured environments. Various sources of uncertainty are identified and approaches to minimize their effects are presented. In the teleoperated mode, the system uses two force‐reflecting hand controllers to operate two manipulator arms. A third arm is utilized to position four cameras to view the scene. In the supervisory mode, the system can be operated from three different levels: task, process, and servo levels, providing different levels of autonomy and performance. Various tools are provided so that an operator can perform tasks even when objects are partially occluded or their positions are not known a priori. Facilities are available for building models of previously unknown objects on‐line, as well as generating collision‐free motions. Architecturally, the system is designed so that an operator and much of the associated computing environment can be located remotely relative to the robots. As such, ground‐controlled remote manipulation is possible.