A user-friendly manufacturing system for `hyper-environments´

The authors describe a manufacturing system that allows the natural manipulation of tools of production and raw materials in environments which cannot be accessed directly by normal human senses. The term `hyper-environment´ connotes such an environment as remote locations, the micrometer world, or outer space. The authors discuss the functions necessary to realize the system, the software and hardware employed in the system, and the `reality communication´ techniques needed to allow the remote human operator to monitor the operation effectively. Attention is given to a technique for transforming cutting force information into auditory information that allows the operator to determine the cutting conditions. Tests in which a machining center in Tokyo was controlled by teleoperators in Washington are described