Supervisory control of remote manipulation

The relatively short distances to be spanned in using the manipulators presently available permit real-time control systems, frequently employing direct linkages. The advent of space flight necessitates the design of manipulation systems that can perform complicated tasks, on the moon and beyond, upon command from earth. Such a design must compensate for the communications time delay due to the distances involved and also for a difference in environment not directly observable by the human operator. The answer to the problem seems to lie in a computer-controlled remote unit, capable of making limited decisions of its own but supervised from home base.