Remote teleassistance

We contrast the effects of communication latency on our human/robot control technique, called teleassistance, versus traditional teleoperation. In teleassistance, a human operator uses hand signs to guide an otherwise autonomous robot manipulator through a given task. Each sign signals a context switch and provides task-centered reference frames for the robot's autonomous servo-motor routines. The signs are natural, such as pointing to an object to indicate the desire to reach toward it as well as the axis along which to reach. The robot is a Utah/MIT hand mounted on a Puma 760 arm. For both teleassistance and teleoperation, the operator wears an EXOS hand master, a polhemus arm position sensor and a Virtual Research helmet that is coupled to binocular cameras mounted on a second Puma 760. The use of a video helmet allows for remote control of the robot and the simulation of communication lag-time. Experimental results suggest that teleassistance scales well with latency delays, unlike teleoperation.