Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
10.2.4 Telemanipulation
Although the human being is very adept at performing manipulative tasks, there are
clearly a number of environments in which the safety aspect and location render any
such undertakings either impossible or hazardous (such as in nuclear stations, mines,
polluted environments, war zones, or in remote environments such as deep sea or outer
space). Even the use of automatic robots may not be possible due to safety and reliability
issues. Telemanipulation, which is an extension of teleoperation, provides a skilled human
operator with the means to perform manipulation tasks using a robot that can, itself, be
placed in a situation or environment that would be not possible or not safe for a human
[14 - 16].
Telemanipulation operations, however, cannot be accomplished without visual [17] and
haptic telepresence capability, which allows the human teleoperator to experience the
same feeling as the robot itself [16, 18 - 21].
Adding force feedback and tactile sensing in telemanipulation tasks improves task
completion time and accuracy. For example, in the Dextrous Telemanipulation project
that originated in Stanford University, a telemanipulator system was developed which
allows a human to control a dexterous robotic hand in an intuitive manner (Figure 10.2).
The master system is centered on the human hand and finger motions. A glove, upon
which instruments are attached, is used to measure finger motions and a lightweight
exoskeleton force-feedback device provides fingertip-level force feedback to the operator
(Figure 10.2a). The slave system consists of a custom-designed two-fingered dexterous
robotic hand outfitted with force and tactile sensors (Figure 10.2b). The robot hand is
attached to a larger industrial robot for increased workspace.
As an another example, Dextre (also known as Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator
(SPDM) or Canadarm because of Canada's contribution to the International Space Station
(ISS)) is the most sophisticated robot ever built as a space handyman with the maintenance
mission of keeping the ISS ship-shape (Figure 10.3).
(a)
(b)
Figure 10.2
Dextrous telemanipulation system from Stanford University. (a) The master system
consisting of an instrumented glove for finger motion measurement and an exoskeleton for fingertip
force feedback [22]. (b) The slave robotic hand with two fingers and fingertip force sensors for
relaying environmental interactions (See Plate 18)
