Collaborative Control: A Robot-Centric Model for Vehicle Teleoperation

Telerobotic systems have traditionally been designed and operated from a human point of view. Though this approach suffices for some domains, it is clearly sub-optimal for tasks such as operating multiple vehicles or controlling planetary rovers. Thus, I believe it is worthwhile to examine a new teleoperation approach: collaborative control. In this robot-centric model, instead of the human always being “in charge”, the robot works as a peer and makes requests of the human. In other words, the human is treated as an imprecise, limited source of planning and information, just like sensors and maps and other noisy modules. To examine the numerous human-machine interaction and system design issues raised by this new approach, I propose to build a vehicle teleoperation system based on collaborative control. In my research, I will show how this approach enables efficient teleoperation and optimizes use of human resources.