NETWORK-BASED INFRASTRUCTURE FOR DISTRIBUTED REMOTE OPERATIONS AND ROBOTICS RESEARCH

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.