Unified telerobotic architecture project program overview

The time is right to transition telerobotics beyond the traditional hazardous environment domain into industrial repair and remanufacturing applications. Air Force depots are prime examples of an industrial environment where small batch sizes, feature uncertainty, and varying workload conspire to make classical industrial robotic solutions impractical and telerobotics a key enabling technology. The United States Air Force, Air Force Material Command, Robotics and Automation Center of Excellence (RACE) has launched the Unified Telerobotics Architecture Project (UTAP) to champion the development of the support infrastructure necessary to foster creative development and innovative utilization of emerging telerobotic technologies for depot applications. The UTAP program is the focus of this paper