Supermedia in Internet-Based Telerobotic Operations

In the past decade robotics and the Internet, fed by the great advances in computing and networking, matured into giant interdisciplinary scientific fields. Therefore, it is not surprising that many are trying to merge these two technologies and develop Internet-based robotic teleoperation. More interestingly, Internet-based bilateral teleoperation, where supermedia is fed back to the operator in order to increase efficiency and achieve telepresence. Supermedia is the collection of multimedia (video, audio, ...), haptic and other sensory information. This paper studies supermedia enhanced teleoperation via the Internet, concentrating on the real-time control of such systems and their performance. The potential of this technology and its advantages will be explored. In addition, key issues, such as stability, synchronization and transparency, will be analyzed and studied. Specifically, event-based planning and control of Internet-based teleoperation systems is presented with experimental results of several implemented system scenarios.