Tele-act: A task level teleprogramming system

The authors address the problem of controlling a remote arm when a large communication delay exists between the control room and the remote workcell. To minimize the volume of information transiting through the communication link and to avoid the problems due to the delay of transmission, the system makes use of two identical world models of the remote workcell: one installed physically close to the operator and the other installed within the controller of the remote site. The communication link only transmits task level robot commands or goals to be achieved. Both sites are equipped with two sets of identical planners, one set is used to test if the generated task level commands can be processed by these planners and the other to plan and execute the actual commands on the remote workcell. After an overview of existing teleprogramming environments, the authors present a general description of the system. Finally they describe the experimental testbed and the results obtained with their method