Teleoperation

Teleoperation

Mariacarla MemeoRobotics, Brain and Cognitive Science(RBCS)

Multisensory mapping groupIstituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Italy

● Teleoperation●Definition●Forms of feedback●Teleoperation setup

● Space missions●Teleoperations in nuclear reactors●Military missions●Tele-surgery●Problems in teleoperations●Haptics in teleoperation

Outline

● Teleoperation, also called telerobotics, is the technical term for the remote control of a robot called a telechir .

● In a telerobotic system, a human operator controls the movements of a telechir from some distance away.

● Since the user cannot see the robot directly, he or she must rely on feedback from the robot's worksite. This is presented to the user by way of the interface.

Definition

● Live video from video cameras

● Haptic (touch, such as a vibration)

● Auditory (human ear range)

● temperature

● contact sensors

● sonar images

Forms of Feedback

What would we do?

TeleoperationSignals are sent to the telechir to control it; other signals come back, telling the operator that the telechir has followed the instructions. These control and return signals are called telemetry .

Master Slave - telechir

control

feedback

Sample Teleoperation Setup

• in space missions;

• in a nuclear reactor;

• in military missions;

• for minimally-invasive surgery;

• Etc… (mines, rescues in water, rescues in burning buildings…)

Common Uses for Controlling Robots

● For planetary surface operations, the European Space Agency initiated a development for teleoperated mini-rovers.

● Remote control functions related to autonomous reaction capabilities and sensor data processing on-board the vehicle exhibit interesting transfer potential to industrial and educational teleoperation tasks.

Space missions

With its rover named Curiosity, Mars Science Laboratory mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet. Curiosity was designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes. In other words, its mission is to determine the planet's "habitability."

Space missions

● Activities in space are fundamentally limited by the amount of energy required to raise loads into earth orbit.

● An additional requirement, when humans are involved, is the expense and additional mass of life support and safety critical systems. Because of these reasons, conducting operations such as protein crystal growth on manned space missions is very expensive.

● Teleoperation technology can thus have a very substantial impact on

the cost of microgravity operations by reducing the number of humans required in space for a given amount of work.

● Secondly, if the size of the teleoperation slave system is reduced, the cost of launching and housing the robotic system is also reduced.

Space missions

● communication time delay

● restrictions of communication capacity

● limitations of computation power on board

These space systems demand a high level of safety and reliability. A mis-operation may induce serious damages to human life or to the space system itself.

Issues

Space missions

An example of a slave system based in space

Inspection and maintenance is essential in the nuclear industry. It is not easy to carry out such maintenance tasks since the environments are usually highly radioactive and are unsafe for human workers.

Teleoperation in Nuclear Reactors

● suffer from low payload capacity;

● relatively large end point deflections.;

● installation and the storage of these long manipulators could be

costly.

Issues

Clearly military missions can be very unsafe for a human, so the use of a robot to do this could be a solution (peace is the only solution)…….operating it from a distance.

● MSNBC, Jan 24, 2005: Army robot soldier for Iraq

Military missions

MSNBC, Jan 24, 2005 “The Army is preparing to send 18 of

these remote-controlled robotic warriors to fight in Iraq beginning in March or April.”

Made by a small Massachusetts company these will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat.A SWORDS robot shoots only when its human operator presses a button after identifying a target on video shot by the robot’s cameras.

Robot soldier for Iraq

At least a perfect soldier.

An operation is performed with instruments and viewing equipment that is inserted into the body through small incisions.

Tele-surgery

With the da Vinci Surgical System, surgeons operate through just a few small incisions. The da Vinci System features a magnified 3D high-definition vision system and tiny wristed instruments that bend and rotate far greater than the human wrist. As a result, da Vinci enables your surgeon to operate with enhanced vision, precision, dexterity and control.

Tele-surgery

● ADVANTAGESThis minimizes the surgical trauma and damage to the healthy tissue, resulting in shorter patient recovery time.

● DISADVANTAGES● Reduced dexterity● Reduced workspace● Reduced sensory input to surgeon which is only available through

a single video image

● The unreachable ideal transparency

● Time delay

● Industrial robotics is sometimes opposed to teleoperation solutions

● Reliability and safety

Problems in Teleoperation

● One of the most important teleoperator characteristics after stability

is transparency;

● The goal of teleoperation is to achieve transparency by mimicking

human motor and sensory functions;

● An established fact is that ideal transparency can never be reached

by conventional bilateral control unless it is redefined by other

criteria or conceived differently.

The unreachable ideal transparency

● Communication time delay between master and slave is very crucial

in teleoperation;

● Time delay affects not only transparency, because the operator

actions and feedback are delayed, but also stability.

Time Delay

● Industrial robotics is sometimes opposed to teleoperation solutions

from a flexibility viewpoint;

● Teleoperation flexibility is in many ways dependent on operator

adaptation to the teleoperation system;

● to perform a task the operator must be trained and specialized.

Problems with Industrial Robotics

● Use of high-powered master/slave devices is very dangerous;

● Powered manipulation arms are very slow devices;

● quick or jerky motions should not be used.

Reliability and Safety

● Haptics machines communicate with humans using movement and forces

● The most common devices are force-feedback joysticks that can give a certain force back to the user, dependent on the joystick position.

● Sometimes the forces are generated from a virtual environment, and sometimes from a real robot somewhere else. In this case, it is called force-reflecting (or haptic) teleoperation.

Haptics in teleoperations

TeleoperationSignals are sent to the telechir to control it; other signals come back, telling the operator that the telechir has followed the instructions. These control and return signals are called telemetry .

Master Slave - telechir

control

feedback

Force feedback

Simulate tactile perception