Telerobotics

Telerobotics is the area of robotics concerned with the control of semi-autonomous robots from a distance, chiefly using television, wireless networks (like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the Deep Space Network) or tethered connections. It is a combination of two major subfields, which are teleoperation and telepresence.

Teleoperation indicates operation of a machine at a distance. It is similar in meaning to the phrase "remote control" but is usually encountered in research, academic and technical environments. It is most commonly associated with robotics and mobile robots but can be applied to a whole range of circumstances in which a device or machine is operated by a person from a distance.

Teleoperation is the most standard term, used both in research and technical communities, for referring to operation at a distance. This is opposed to "telepresence", which refers to the subset of telerobotic systems configured with an immersive interface such that the operator feels present in the remote environment, projecting their presence through the remote robot. One of the first telepresence systems that enabled operators to feel present in a remote environment through all of the primary senses (sight, sound, and touch) was the Virtual Fixtures system developed at US Air Force Research Laboratories in the early 1990s. The system enabled operators to perform dexterous tasks (inserting pegs into holes) remotely such that the operator would feel as if he or she was inserting the pegs when in fact it was a robot remotely performing the task.

A telemanipulator (or teleoperator) is a device that is controlled remotely by a human operator. In simple cases the controlling operator's command actions correspond directly to actions in the device controlled, as for example in a radio-controlled model aircraft or a tethered deep submergence vehicle. Where communications delays make direct control impractical (such as a remote planetary rover), or it is desired to reduce operator workload (as in a remotely controlled spy or attack aircraft), the device will not be controlled directly, instead being commanded to follow a specified path. At increasing levels of sophistication the device may operate somewhat independently in matters such as obstacle avoidance, also commonly employed in planetary rovers.

Devices designed to allow the operator to control a robot at a distance are sometimes called telecheric robotics.

Two major components of telerobotics and telepresence are the visual and control applications. A remote camera provides a visual representation of the view from the robot. Placing the robotic camera in a perspective that allows intuitive control is a recent technique that although based in Science Fiction (Robert A. Heinlein's 1942 short story "Waldo") has not been fruitful as the speed, resolution and bandwidth have only recently been adequate to the task of being able to control the robot camera in a meaningful way. Using a head mounted display, the control of the camera can be facilitated by tracking the head as shown in the figure below.

This only works if the user feels comfortable with the latency of the system, the lag in the response to movements, the visual representation. Any issues such as, inadequate resolution, latency of the video image, lag in the mechanical and computer processing of the movement and response, and optical distortion due to camera lens and head mounted display lenses, can cause the user 'simulator sickness' that is exacerbated by the lack of vestibular stimulation with visual representation of motion.

Mismatch between the users motions such as registration errors, lag in movement response due to overfiltering, inadequate resolution for small movements, and slow speed can contribute to these problems.