Gv. Kondraske et al., NETWORK-BASED INFRASTRUCTURE FOR DISTRIBUTED REMOTE OPERATIONS AND ROBOTICS RESEARCH, IEEE transactions on robotics and automation, 9(5), 1993, pp. 702-704
The establishment of a unique infrastructure for distributed robotics
and remote operations research within an educational environment is re
ported. Using a new object-oriented protocol (TelRIP) and Internet, th
is distributed laboratory consists of sites at four universities (Univ
ersities Space Automation and Robotics Consortium) and NASA's Johnson
Space Center. The distributed laboratory configuration provides the op
portunity to quantitatively study the effects of various system compon
ents and technologies on overall telerobotic task performance. We have
successfully implemented and demonstrated (first in February 1991) th
e ability to execute representative inspection and manipulation tasks
with multiple control, robot, and performance/workload monitoring site
s simultaneously connected. Operations are carried out on a routine ba
sis. During the process, needs for hardware and software standards dev
elopment have been identified. The current implementation provides the
basis to link government, industrial, and university facilities to a
truly collaborative research and development environment, enabling gra
duate students to experience rich educational opportunities that would
otherwise not be possible.