TELEROBOT CONTROL INTERFACE BASED ON CONSTRAINTS

EVEN WITH THE BEST AVAILABLE TELEPRESENCE SYSTEMS, AND THE MOST DEXTROUS MANIPULATORS, IT IS TIME CONSUMING AND UNRELIABLE TO PERFORM FINE MANIPULATION VIA TELEOPERATION BECAUSE OF THE LIMITED TACTILE AND FORCE FEEDBACK. FOR FINE MANIPULATION TASKS, THE GOAL SHOULD BE TO GENERATE RELIABLE, PRESTORED, OFF-LINE PROGRAMS AND TO ALLOW THE ROBOT TO PERFORM THOSE TASKS AUTONOMOUSLY UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF AN OPERATOR. THIS RESULTS IN THE SAFETY AND FLEXIBILITY OF A FULLY TELEOPERATED SYSTEM, YET CAN ACHIEVE THE EFFICIENCY OF OPERATIONS PERFORMED AUTONOMOUSLY BY THE ROBOT. OUR RESEARCH HAS LED US TO BELIEVE THAT A FORMAL APPROACH TO SPECIFYING THE STEPS REQUIRED FOR MANIPULATION TASKS IS ESSENTIAL TO DEVELOPING TTHE REQUIRED SOFTWARE FOR SPECIFIC TASKS, AND IN ADAPTIVELY CONTROLLING AND MONITORING ROBOTIC OPERATIONS. WE HAVE DEFINED 15 PRIMITIVE OPERATIONS BASED ON THE REDUCTION IN THE DEGREES OF FREEDOM WHICH OCCURS WHEN COMPONENTS ARE ASSEMBLED AND MANIPULATED. FROM OUR INITIAL EXPERIMENTS, THESE PRIMITIVES APPEAR TO ELEGANTLY AND COMPLETELY DEFINE THE FINE MANIPULATION REQUIRED FOR SIMPLE ASSEMBLY TASKS. EACH OF THE PRIMITIVES HAS A STRATEGY ASSOCIATED WITH ITS EXECUTION, AND A SET OF RECOVERY ALGORITHMS IN THE EVENT THE OPERATION FAILS. THE WORK HEREIN PROPOSED WILL EXPAND THE WORK WE HAVE ALREADY DONE AND DEMONSTRATE ITS APPLICABILITY TO TELEOPERATION.