Tele-operation between usa and japan using humanoid robot hand/arm

This paper presents a tele-control system constructed by a robot hand/arm and operator. The angle of the robot hand is controlled by the angle of the operator´s finger, and the operator feels the environmental force, as detected by the touch sensor of the robot hand, constituting so-called bilateral master/slave control. The position of the robot arm is controlled by the position of the operator´s arm. So far, there has been little research using a multi-fingered humanoid robot hand in a network environment where communication delay exists. The purpose of our study is to achieve tele-operation between an operator´s hand/arm and a multi-fingered humanoid robot hand/arm with delayed time. Therefore, this study constructs a system that can grasp and manipulate objects stably, despite the communication delay. In the experiments, the operator operates humanoid robot hand/arm of Toyohashi University of Technology from USA. The operator grasp and moves an object in Japan by operating the humanoid robot hand/arm. The staff in Japan gives the operation instruction to the operator in USA during experiment. The operator operates robot according to the voice. The experimental results show that this system can grasp and manipulate objects stably, despite the communication delay. In addition, the operator grasped the object using a multi-fingered humanoid robot hand/arm by master/slave control feeling fingertip force by tele-operation between USA and Japan.