<title>Investigations in telerobotics using cooperative supervisory modes of control</title>

Abstract

This paper presents some experimental investigations in the field of robotics and telerobotics using a cooperative and complementary supervisory mode of control. The system allows a very wide range of applications provided by the design of an advanced graphic user interface (GUI) and the use of a CCD camera with a force sensor mounted together on the end effector of a Kuka361 industrial robot. The stereo-vision effect is obtained from two consecutive images separated by a known displacement of the CCD camera. Through the developed GUI, tasks can be carried out in 3D using a point-and-direct method. However, since the vision system is very sensitive with respect to the varying conditions of the real world, a cooperative error recovery scheme (CERS) is proposed in order to improve efficiently the robustness of the system. This scheme involves the supervisor and the computer in a partnership relation and establishes a dialogue between them for recovering errors, avoiding failures and saving time. For simulation purposes, a CAD model of the robot environment can be obtained from the 2D images and can be exploited under the CAD-based reaction force simulator software, called ROSI.