Sensorsimulation-based Interactive Telerobot Control System

This paper describes the control architecture, the main issues, and the features of the Teleoperationsystem TELOS, as well as the main future research areas. The TELOS Teleoperationsystem allows human supervisory of remote teleoperators even in a time delayed environment. The operation concept defines two main phases. The first phase is either an automatic or operator driven "preparation" phase. It includes off-line, model-based planning facilities as well as sensorsimulation tools to prepare telerobot activities in the fields of servicing or assembly. These facilities are developed and integrated for best operator support during telerobot activity preparation and for the prediction of sensor values, which are necessary to integrate control methods for the remote telerobot. The preparation phase integrates real-time simulation on 3D computer graphics for operatorbased telerobot programming and visual verification of the telerobot operation sequences. This leads to proved, robust operation sequences, too. The second main phase of the operation concept is the "execution" phase, with automatic robot action execution on a sensor-based telerobot, and if required, operator support during exception diagnosis and recovery. The semiautonomous telerobot execution is monitored by sensor conditions, which are parameterized and initialized during the preparation process.