Using Tactile Information in Telerobotics

Roger A. Browse and Marcia L. McDonald

Abstract

An array force sensor mounted on the gripper of a robot can provide information about the contact taking place with the environment. Limited success has been attained in the use of such sensors in identifying and localizing objects. Another promising use is in the provision of tactile information for telerobotic operations. Experiments have been carried out that test a variety of tactile display methods examining human performance in judgements about robotic manipulation. The pattern of performance across the different display methods suggests that the use of the tactile data is dependent on the availability of an intersensory model of the environment.

Introduction

Teleoperational robotics (telerobotics) offers the opportunity for humans to accomplish tasks in environments that are currently inaccessible, too hazardous, or of the wrong scale for direct human manipulation. While there are numerous technical difficulties in the development of telerobots, these difficulties are far less ominous than the problems of developing the alternative technology of autonomous robots. One example is in the realm of perceptual processing. In many telerobotic applications, a video signal from the robot site may be sufficient to permit the operator's effective manipulation, but an autonomous robot that could act upon similar visual knowledge would likely require sophisticated image understanding systems.

The essence of the telerobotic approach is to finesse the difficulties of robotic perception by utilizing the human operator's ability to understand the environment. As humans are excellent at the processing of perceptual information, the limitation to the approach is found in the capabilities for delivering the perceptual information to the human operator. Simple manipulation tasks may require only a video feed, but more demanding tasks often require more perceptual data.