Decision making for remote robotic operations

Robotic systems are often used for remote operations in Department of Energy Environmental Management applications because they allow the removal of personnel from dangerous environments. Typically, these systems are operated in pure teleoperation mode by a human operator. While these systems are capable of performing many tasks, their performance can be greatly enhanced through the use of telerobotics (a combination of teleoperation, automation, and decision making). This paper describes an analytical approach to decision making for robotic systems used in remote operations. This approach utilizes redundancy in the system or the task to improve the overall system performance based on analytical criteria. The approach is illustrated by application to the dual arm telerobot at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the pit viper system at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). In both instances, decision making clearly reduces the operator involvement in tedious tasks while improving performance.