Shared control for dexterous telemanipulation with haptic feedback

Telemanipulation systems provide human operators with the ability to see, touch, and feel objects from a remote location. In telemanipulation, a remote robot is controlled by a human and interacts with an environment while relaying information back to the human, providing access to environments which may be hostile, hazardous, or difficult to access.; A new dexterous telemanipulation system has been developed, which enables an operator to use a glove-based interface to control a robotic hand for remote grasping and manipulation tasks. In addition to visual feedback, forces from the remote manipulator are fed back to the operator's fingertips to create a more immersive experience.; By combining teleoperation with techniques from autonomous dexterous manipulation, the remote robot hand has the ability to control low-level grasping forces and motions. By providing local control, the robot allows the operator to concentrate on the higher-level task requirements of a grasped object or tool. This thesis focuses on the development of a shared control system that combines high-level and low-level operator commands with those of a semi-autonomous robotic hand for remote object manipulation. Fingertip forces are relayed back to the operator from the remote manipulator. This feedback is augmented with audio, visual, and haptic cues to inform the operator when the robot intervenes.; Shared control has the potential to overcome some of the limitations imposed by traditional telemanipulation architectures. Problems such as time delays and limitations in the fidelity of the master interface become less detrimental because commands from the operator are supplemented by local control. However, there is some concern that the operator's sense of presence will be reduced as the remote robot takes over more of the control. A set of experiments was therefore designed to evaluate the efficacy of shared control for dexterous telemanipulation and to determine what combinations of force, visual and audio feedback provide the best performance and operator sense of presence. The results demonstrate the benefits of shared control and the need to choose carefully the types and methods of direct and indirect feedback.