Shared/traded control of telerobots under time delay

Abstract In this paper, we describe the design and development of a robotic system with Traded and Shared Control capability. This system will be able to accept and execute commands both from a hand controller (teleoperation) and an autonomous system, or a combination of the two. We begin by justifying the need for such a system, especially for space applications. Our efforts are directed towards building a system that retains the advantages of each mode (autonomous or teleoperated), which allowing for its shortcomings to be overcome by the other. We consider a two-tiered robotic system here; the higher generates task-level programs, and the lower, actually executes them on a robot. Shared control is implemented in both of these two levels. The operator can provide task level commands to either modify or supplement the autonomous task planner as well as modify or influence the position and force trajectories at the servo level. Finally, a control architecture is presented to realize the above notions of Traded and Shared Control. This includes a description of the hardware and the software of the system.