Toward Advanced Teleoperation in Space

J In general, teleoperation implies continu ous perceptive and cognitive human operator involvement in the control of remote manipulators. Typically, the human control is a manual / — . one, and the basic information feedback is through visual irna~ Continuous human operator v’ involvement in teleoperation has both advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages become quite dramatic when there is an observable, two-way communication time delay between the operator and the remotely controlled equipment. Modern development trends in teleoperator control technology are aimed at amplifying the advantages and alleviating the disadvantages of the human element in teleoperation through the development and use of various non-visual sensing capabilities, intelligent or task-level computer controls, computer graphics or virtual reality displays, and new computer-based human-machine interface devices and techniques in the information and control channels between the operator and the remotely controlled manipulators. These development trends are typically summarized under the popular titles of telepresence and supervisory control technologies. h-i this chapter, those two titles are lumped under the term advanced teleoperation.