ABSTRACT
Teleoperators or the activities of teleoperation extend the manipulative capabilities of the human arm and hand to remote, physically hostile, or dangerous environments. Teleoperator systems were developed in the mid-1940s to create capabilities for handling highly radioactive material. This chapter focuses on mechanical, control, and display topics that are specific to the human-machine system aspect of teleoperation and telerobotics: hand controllers, task level manual and automatic controls, and overlaid, calibrated graphics displays aimed to overcome telecommunication time delay problems in teleoperation. The control system on the remote site is designed to prevent sudden robot motions. The motion commands received are incremental and are added to the current parameter under control. Task visualization is a key problem in teleoperation, since most of the operator’s control decisions are based on visual or visually conveyed information. The chapter concludes with specific issues in anthropomorphic telerobotics and outlines of emerging application areas.
