Teleoperation Techniques Research Articles

Locomotion control and analysis of the cyborg cockroach movement for obstacle avoidance task using teleoperation technique

Locomotion control and analysis of the cyborg cockroach movement for obstacle avoidance task using teleoperation technique

Teleoperation control of a wheeled mobile robot based on Brain-machine Interface.

This paper presents a novel teleoperation system using Electroencephalogram (EEG) to control the motion of a wheeled mobile robot (WMR). Different from the other traditional motion controlling method, the WMR is braked with the EEG classification results. Furthermore, the EEG will be induced by using the online BMI (Brain Machine Interface) system, and adopting the non-intrusion induced mode SSVEP (steady state visually evoked potentials). Then, user's motion intention can be recognized by canonical correlation analysis (CCA) classifier, which will be converted into motion commands of the WMR. Finally, the teleoperation technique is utilized to manage the information of the movement scene and adjust the control instructions based on the real-time information. Bezier curve is used to parameterize the path planning of the robot, and the trajectory can be adjusted in real time by EEG recognition results. A motion controller based on error model is proposed to track the planned trajectory by using velocity feedback control, providing excellent track tracking performance. Finally, the feasibility and performance of the proposed teleoperation brain-controlled WMR system are verified using demonstration experiments.

Experimental Evaluation of Teleoperated Control of Cyborg Insects between Bangladesh and Japan

The teleoperation system is very popular for various medical, industrial, and automation applications. During the covid19 pandemic, people understood the importance of the teleoperation system because people could not move from one place to another for travel restrictions. Recently cyborg insects have been a hot research topic for search and rescue operations. However, controlling cyborg insects is not easy because insects are living things and have a biological control system. Only experts can balance the biological and electrical control systems. Otherwise, too much stimulation could kill the insects. This study aimed to develop a cyborg cockroach controlling system for search and rescue operations using the teleoperation technique. The teleoperation system communication link was established between Japan to Bangladesh. These experimental results show that the cyborg insects control accuracy 88% using a teleoperation system. Finally, this study will help control the cyborg insects for search and rescue operations by an expert operator anywhere any the world.

Real-Time Teleoperation of Magnetic Force-Driven Microrobots With 3D Haptic Force Feedback for Micro-Navigation and Micro-Transportation

Untethered mobile microrobots controlled by an external magnetic gradient field can be employed as advanced biomedical applications inside the human body such as cell therapy, micromanipulation, and noninvasive surgery. Haptic technology and telecommunication, on the other hand, can extend the potentials of untethered microrobot applications. In those applications, users can communicate with the robot operating system remotely to manipulate microrobots with haptic feedback. Haptic sensations artificially constructed by the wirelessly communicated information can assist human operators to experience forces while controlling the microrobots. The proposed system is composed of a haptic device and a magnetic tweezer system, both of which are integrated through a teleoperation technique based on network communication. Users can control the microrobots remotely and feel the haptic interactions with the remote environment in real-time. The 3D haptic environment is reconstructed dynamically by a model-free haptic rendering algorithm using a 2D planar image input of the microscope. The interaction between microrobots and environmental objects is haptically rendered as 3D objects to achieve spatial haptic operation with obstacle avoidance. Moreover, path generation and path guidance forces provide virtual interaction for human users to manipulate the microrobot by following the near-optimal path in path-following tasks. The potential applications of the presented system are medical remote treatment in different sites, remote drug delivery by avoiding physically penetrating through the skin, remotely-controlled cell manipulations, and biopsy without a biopsy needle.

RBFNN-Based Adaptive Sliding Mode Control Design for Nonlinear Bilateral Teleoperation System Under Time-Varying Delays

The bilateral teleoperation technique has drawn much attention with its attractive superiority to implement the tasks in hazardous environments. Transmission delays and uncertainties are the two main challenges in the nonlinear bilateral teleoperation system to guarantee stability and achieve good transparency performance (including position tracking and force feedback) simultaneously. In this paper, a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN)-based adaptive sliding mode control design is developed for the nonlinear bilateral teleoperation system with transmission delays and uncertainties. For details, the reference trajectory producer is designed in both the master and slave sides to produce the passive reference trajectories for the tracking of master/slave manipulators. The RBFNN-based adaptive sliding mode controller is designed separately for the master and slave to achieve the good tracking performance under system uncertainties. To mitigate the negative effect of transmission delays on the system's stability, a projection mapping by saturation function is applied in the master side to guarantee the boundedness of the delayed environmental torque. Thus, the global stability and the good transparency performance with both position tracking and force feedback can be simultaneously achieved for our proposed method. The comparative experiment is carried out, and the results show the significant performance improvement with our proposed control design.

Predictive Approach for Sensorless Bimanual Teleoperation Under Random Time Delays With Adaptive Fuzzy Control

Robot teleoperation techniques are applied in industrial automation, space, and surgery. Considering the high cost of force–torque (F/T) sensors, an “indirect estimation” of the external force is preferable to “direct sensing” of the force. This study provides a predictive control method for a bimanual teleoperation system without F/T and acceleration sensors. Two types of mirror predictors are built into the control architecture. One of them is a position predictor estimating the position states of the remote side under stochastic network-induced delays. The force predictor estimates the contact forces and dynamic uncertainties utilizing the local time-delayed information. By accurately estimating the local force, the position predictors/observers are used to estimate the internal dynamics of the master and slave simultaneously, and thereby, avoid using the delayed transmitted information. An adaptive fuzzy control strategy based on linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) is proposed to evaluate and suppress the uncertainties, thereby, ensuring that the synchronization errors of the system positions converge to zero and the estimated force approaches real values. The system stability of the closed-loop system is proven using LMIs based on a Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional synthesis. An experimental test involving a dual-arm robot, YuMi, holding and moving a yoga ball is performed based on a semiphysical platform.

Collision avoidance, virtual guides and advanced supervisory control teleoperation techniques for high-tech construction: framework design

Abstract One of the biggest challenges to drill deeper tunnels in the future is to design new maintenance tools. Advanced teleoperation and supervisory control techniques were identified in the Telemach project as potential solutions to carry out this work. Due to limitations of the existing systems, a complete framework merging virtual reality tools and real equipment was designed. A wide range of assistances were developed to reduce the impact of secondary tasks during the maintenance process, offer helpful guiding capability and secure the task execution according to the context. The feasibility of the principle was demonstrated on key operations on a scale one mock-up of a Tunnel Boring Machine section. Attention was paid to develop generic tools, meaning that the whole high-tech construction industry could benefit from these new technologies.

Design considerations of robotic system for cleaning and inspection of large‐diameter sewers

AbstractOn behalf of the Emschergenossenschaft, a public wastewater utility based in Essen, Germany, the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation (IFF) in Magdeburg has developed a novel robotic system, the damage measuring and cleaning system (SVM‐RS), for cleaning and inspecting large‐diameter sewers that are partially filled and in normal operation. The SVM‐RS was specifically designed and built for use in the Emscher sewer system and employs a multisensor approach for a high‐resolution inspection of the pipe, both above and below the water. Furthermore, robotics technologies are used in combination with traditional high‐pressure cleaning techniques to achieve high‐quality cleaning results. In addition to the hardware design, a number of software developments in the areas of software architecture, image processing, and data fusion for understanding and presenting the data, as well as teleoperation techniques, have been carried out in the course of the project. Here automatic detection of damage as well as other features present in the environment has proven to be of importance. Design considerations and solutions for individual components of the cleaning and inspection are described within the context of the whole system, and the results of specific tests and experiments are presented. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

SyTroN: A Virtual Classroom for Collaborative and Distant E-Learning System by Teleoperating Real Devices

Distant E-learning is a main issue nowadays, and it is strongly motivated by social and economical considerations. The increased people mobility and the reduction of educational costs push to develop ad hoc solutions enabling to access to knowledge regardless to geographical situation and economical capabilities. These parameters should not be limits for good training: learning material's pertinence and efficiency have to remain the core of educational activities. In this paper we address the problem through SyTroN: a tele-learning system. This system combines virtual reality and teleoperation techniques to offer an open platform with two main objectives. The first one is to propose intuitive virtual classrooms/desks, including a real teacher supervision and supporting collaborative and individual distant learning. The second goal is to place learners in real conditions with remote connections to real devices allowing distant experimentations. Both goals participate to increase learning impacts and to reduce costs, that is, sharing costly real devices from anywhere at any time. After 5 years of development, our work has been validated by an extensive use at a high engineering school. In situ tests and learning impact studies have been done. They show some advantages and some drawbacks of our global solution.

Teleoperation Techniques for Assembling an Antenna by using Space Robots – Experiments on Engineering Test Satellite VII –

Large, precise space antennas are important for space infrastructures. The Communication Research Laboratory (CRL) has developed an assembly-type antenna for future space communication infrastructures and has been studying the techniques that control space robots used to assemble this type of antenna. The first on-board experiments for assembling the developed antenna have been scheduled to take place on Engineering Test Satellite VII (ETS-VII), which was launched in November 1997. The most important concerns in using space robots are safety and reliability. Teleoperation of space robots is very stressful for operators, who work under significant time constraints. This is especially true since space robots cannot be repaired during operation. We tested two teleoperation technologies control techniques designed to reduce the operational load while allowing flexible and dexterous operation during the upcoming ETS-VII experiments. The first is audio feedback. The second is virtual bilateral control. Both techniques were found to significantly improve efficiency and reduce the risks associated with space assembly.

Configuration space as a means for augmenting human performance in teleoperation tasks

This paper considers an approach to operator-guided real time motion control of robot arm manipulators that's based on the use of configuration space (C-space). The goal is to improve operator performance in a complex environment with obstacles, In such tasks, traditional teleoperation techniques, which are all based on control in work space (W-space), suffer from human errors tied to deficiencies in human spatial reasoning. The C-space approach transforms the problem into one humans are much better equipped to handle-moving a point in a maze-and results in a significant improvement in performance: shorter path, less time to complete the task, and virtually no arm-obstacle collisions. Versions of the approach are described for two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) tasks, and tools are developed to efficiently interface the human and machine intelligence. Effectiveness of the C-space approach is demonstrated by a series of experiments, showing an improvement in performance on the order of magnitude in the 2-D case and a factor of two to four in the 3-D case, compared to usual work space control.

Graphical Control Interface for Construction and Maintenance Equipment

This paper discusses graphical interfaces to improve equipment control in construction and facility/infrastructure maintenance environments. Most large construction and maintenance machines are difficult to control because of insufficient visual feedback to equipment operators. In many emerging applications such as hazardous waste cleaning, it is also necessary to control such equipment from a distance using teleoperation techniques. Initial evidence indicates that real-time updated graphical representation of equipment and work environments can enhance equipment control by providing better spatial perception to the equipment operator. Real-time simulation and task planning with graphical models can also ensure safe and reliable operation of equipment. However, graphical control interfaces require careful design for successful results as it is very difficult to generate exact graphical models of unstructured and dynamic environments such as construction and maintenance. Design of graphical control interfa...

Teleoperating a mobile robot — A solution based on java language

This article describes a computational framework, which can run almost on every computer connected to a IP-based network, to study teleoperation techniques. The paper discusses the teleoperation of a mobile platform from a remote computer, both connected by the Internet communication network. To obtain a cheap and portable solution, the user interface and communication management was developed using Java language. The development based on this language gave a cheap, portable and easy to improve software package that is useful to test new control techniques with large time delays. Since the real time control over the Internet can suffer from unpredictable delays and bandwidth constraints, the authors use the RTP protocol to overcome some of these problems.

Applying telepresence and augmented reality to teleoperate field robots

In many real-world teleoperation applications like mining, advanced teleoperation techniques will be needed in the near future. Full telepresence provides the best possible resources for controlling a moving machine. Unfortunately, full telepresence is expensive to implement and may be technically motivated only when really needed. In this paper different complexity of telepresence systems are compared. All systems were installed on the same vehicle by using the same teleoperation system by configuring it differently. Different kinds of tasks like corridor driving, loading, etc. were performed with all systems by several users. The comparison was made by timing the executions, registering errors, and interviewing the operators.

Teleprogramming for subsea teleoperation using acoustic communication

This paper considers the performance of subsea intervention tasks from an unmanned untethered submersible while using acoustic communications. It is argued that the low bandwidth and high delay imposed by acoustic modems makes it unwise to adopt conventional teleoperation techniques and a system is presented which permits subsea teleoperative tasks to be carried out using such limited communication resources. The described implementation employs active techniques to assist the operator both in performing actions and in recovering from those problems which will inevitably occur during real-world interaction. It provides the operator with both simulated and real visual imagery and is designed to adapt dynamically to changing bandwidth and computational resources. Experiments are described in which an operator in Philadelphia, PA, controlled a robot manipulator mounted on the JASON underwater vehicle submerged off the Massachusetts coast. All communication over this 500-km distance was via a combination of Internet and a simulated acoustic link. Analysis of the bandwidth requirements showed them to be consistent with those from acoustic subsea networks.