A joint master program in remote engineering

Within an EU funded SOCRATES project universities from Austria, Germany, Ireland,Romania and Slovenia develop a "Joint European Master Program Remote Engineering" (MARE)

Synchronized computational architecture for generalized bilateral control of robot arms

A master six degree of freedom Force Reflecting Hand Controller (FRHC) is available at a master site where a received image displays, in essentially real time, a remote robotic manipulator which is being controlled in the corresponding six degree freedom by command signals which are transmitted to the remote site in accordance with the movement of the FRHC at the master site. Software is user-initiated at the master site in order to establish the basic system conditions, and then a physical movement of the FRHC in Cartesean space is reflected at the master site by six absolute numbers that are sensed, translated and computed as a difference signal relative to the earlier position. The change in position is then transmitted in that differential signal form over a high speed synchronized bilateral communication channel which simultaneously returns robot-sensed response information to the master site as forces applied to the FRHC so that the FRHC reflects the feel of what is taking place at the remote site. A system wide clock rate is selected at a sufficiently high rate that the operator at the master site experiences the Force Reflecting operation in real time

EASTWEB: building an integrated leading Euro-Asian higher education and research community in the field of the Semantic WEB

Based on the experience of the EC funded project EASTWEB, a project involving Universities from Italy (main partner), Austria, Ireland, Poland, China, India and Thailand, we describe a set of on going and planned collaboration activities. We highlight what we see the major advantages but also the difficulties in carrying out such a program

Dual arm master controller development

The advanced servomanipulator (ASM) slave was designed with an anthropomorphic stance gear/torque tube power drives, and modular construction. These features resulted in increased inertia, friction, and backlash relative to tape driven manipulators. Studies were performed which addressed to human factor design and performance tradeoffs associated with the corresponding master controller best suited for the ASM. The results of these studies, as well as the conceptual design of the dual arm master controller, are presented

Exoskeleton master controller with force-reflecting telepresence

A thorough understanding of the requirements for successful master-slave robotic systems is becoming increasingly desirable. Such systems can aid in the accomplishment of tasks that are hazardous or inaccessible to humans. Although a history of use has proven master-slave systems to be viable, system requirements and the impact of specifications on the human factors side of system performance are not well known. In support of the next phase of teleoperation research being conducted at the Armstrong Research Laboratory, a force-reflecting, seven degree of freedom exoskeleton for master-slave teleoperation has been concepted, and is presently being developed. The exoskeleton has a unique kinematic structure that complements the structure of the human arm. It provides a natural means for teleoperating a dexterous, possibly redundant manipulator. It allows ease of use without operator fatigue and faithfully follows human arm and wrist motions. Reflected forces and moments are remotely transmitted to the operator hand grip using a cable transmission scheme. This paper presents the exoskeleton concept and development results to date. Conceptual design, hardware, algorithms, computer architecture, and software are covered

Selection of systems to perform extravehicular activities, man and manipulator. Volume 2 - Final report

Technologies for EVA and remote manipulation systems - handbook for systems designer