Remote Control Robotics

Increasingly, robots are being used in environments inhospitable to humans such as the deep ocean, inside nuclear reactors, and in deep space. Such robots are controlled by remote links to human operators who may be close by or thousands of miles away. The techniques used to control these robots are the subject of this book. Readers are assumed to have a basic understanding of robotics though this may be their first exposure to the subject of telerobotics.

The author begins with a basic introduction to robot control and then considers the important problems to be overcome: delays or noisy control lines, feedback and response information, and predictive displays. Readers are assumed to have a basic understanding of robotics, though this may be their first exposure to the subject of telerobotics. Both professional engineers and roboticists will find this an invaluable introduction to this subject.

Increasingly, robots are being used in environments inhospitable to humans such as the deep ocean, inside nuclear reactors, and in deep space. Such robots are controlled by remote links to human operators who may be close by or thousands of miles away. The techniques used to control these robots are the subject of this book. Readers are assumed to have a basic understanding of robotics though this may be their first exposure to the subject of telerobotics.

1 Introduction.- 1.1 The fundamental tradeoff.- 1.2 Automation.- 1.3 Subsea robotics.- 1.4 Chapter overview.- 2 Basics.- 2.1 Single link robot.- 2.2 Two-link toy.- 2.3 Two-link robot.- 2.4 Forward and inverse kinematics.- 2.5 Redundancy.- 2.6 Moving out of the page.- 2.7 Input devices.- 2.7.1 Binary controls.- 2.7.2 Rate controls.- 2.7.3 Proportional controls.- 2.7.4 Computer control.- 2.8 Summary.- 3 Historical Perspective.- 3.1 Traditional bilateral teleoperation systems.- 3.1.1 The MASCOT teleoperation system.- 3.2 Giving up force feedback.- 3.2.1 The ALVIN teleoperation system.- 3.3 Other teleoperation systems.- 3.4 Operator aids.- 3.4.1 Reindexing.- 3.4.2 Maintaining a natural interface.- 3.4.3 Automatic camera control.- 3.4.4 Computer-generated imagery.- 3.4.5 Kinesthetic aids.- 3.5 Increasingly inter-site distances.- 3.5.1 Coping with delays.- 3.5.2 Predictive displays.- 3.5.3 Increasing remote intelligence.- 3.6 Summary.- 4 Remote Control.- 4.1 Control of remote cameras.- 4.2 Controlling a remote machine.- 4.2.1 Robot archaeologist.- 4.2.2 Toy railroad.- 4.2.3 An industrial manipulator.- 4.3 Summary.- 5 Teleprogramming.- 5.1 Background.- 5.2 Operation.- 5.3 The fundamental tradeoff.- 5.4 Caches.- 5.4.1 Prefetching.- 5.4.2 Cache miss.- 5.4.3 Coherency.- 5.4.4 Predictive branches.- 5.5 Summary.- 6 A Natural Operator Interface.- 6.1 The teleprogramming operator interface.- 6.2 Creating a natural interface.- 6.2.1 Observability.- 6.2.2 Continuity.- 6.2.3 Kinesthetic correspondence.- 6.3 The degree-of-freedom problem.- 6.3.1 Inferior master device.- 6.3.2 Superior master device.- 6.3.3 Inferior slave device.- 6.3.4 Superior slave device.- 6.4 Summary.- 7 Synthetic Fixtures.- 7.1 Overview.- 7.2 Operation.- 7.3 Terminology.- 7.4 Command fixtures.- 7.5 Example applications.- 7.5.1 Point-point fixture.- 7.5.2 Point-path fixture.- 7.5.3 Closest-surface-surface fixture.- 7.5.4 Multiple fixtures for box interaction.- 7.5.5 Multiple fixtures for bolting/unbolting.- 7.6 Algorithm.- 7.6.1 Point-point fixture.- 7.6.2 Point-path fixture.- 7.6.3 Closest-surface-surface fixture.- 7.6.4 Multiple fixtures.- 7.6.5 Fixture activation considerations.- 7.7 Application to teleprogramming.- 7.8 Application to conventional teleoperation.- 7.9 Application to virtual reality.- 7.10 Alternative input devices.- 7.11 Summary.- 8 Visual Imagery.- 8.1 Camera calibration.- 8.2 Updating the world model.- 8.3 Real-time visual imagery.- 8.4 Intelligent fragmentation.- 8.4.1 Finding the best fragment.- 8.4.2 Finding the best camera.- 8.4.3 Encoding the desired image fragment.- 8.5 Intelligent frame rate.- 8.6 Intelligent task rate.- 8.7 Compression algorithms.- 8.8 Other sensory modalities.- 8.9 Future implementations.- 8.10 Summary.- 9 Expecting the Unexpected.- 9.1 Definition.- 9.2 Avoiding operator error.- 9.3 Avoiding interpretation errors.- 9.4 Predicting errors.- 9.5 Error detection and diagnosis.- 9.6 Error recovery.- 9.7 Summary.- 10 Command Generation and Interpretation.- 10.1 Master-to-slave teleprogramming language.- 10.1.1 The need for motion relative to absolute frames...- 10.1.2 Defining frames.- 10.1.3 Selecting frames.- 10.1.4 The frequency of command transmission.- 10.1.5 Handling the communication time delay.- 10.1.6 Sensors and conditional expressions.- 10.1.7 Moving within the command stream.- 10.1.8 Command conservativeness.- 10.2 Slave-to-master teleprogramming language.- 10.2.1 Initialization.- 10.2.2 Command replies.- 10.3 Delaying command execution.- 10.4 Adding additional sensory feedback.- 10.5 Summary.- 11 Results and Observations.- 11.1 Laboratory trials.- 11.1.1 Example task.- 11.1.2 Observations.- 11.2 Test-tank trials.- 11.2.1 Example task.- 11.2.2 Command execution.- 11.2.3 Handling execution errors.- 11.2.4 Observations.- 11.3 Migrating to a subsea system.- 11.4 The October experiments.- 11.5 The November experiments.- 11.5.1 Examples of task execution.- 11.5.2 Observations.- 11.6 Future implementations.- 12 Discussion.- 12.1 Bandwidth considerations.- 12.2 Programming by demonstration.- 12.3 Learning experience.- 12.4 Interacting with uncertainty.- 12.5 The virtual reality mirage.- 12.6 Future interfaces.- 12.7 The distant future.- 13 Conclusions.- A.1 Operator interaction with the master station.- A.1.1 The user interface.- A.1.2 The world model.- A.1.3 Interpreting operator action.- A.2 Master-to-slave communication.- A.2.1 Basic definitions.- A.2.2 The command stream.- A.2.3 Pre-motion commands.- A.2.4 Motion commands.- A.2.5 Post-motion commands.- A.2.6 Example command stream.- A.2.7 Telemetry.- A.3 Command execution at the slave site.- A.4 Slave-to-master communication.- A.4.1 The state message.- A.4.2 The reply stream.- A.4.3 The environment reply.- A.4.4 The error reply.- A.4.5 Example reply stream.- A.4.6 Telemetry.- A.5 Interpreting slave replies.- A.6 Maintaining and reviewing the historical record.- References.