Multi-site real-time tele-cooperation via the Internet

Robotic operations carried out via the Internet face several challenges and difficulties. These range from human-computer interfacing and human-robot interaction to overcoming random time delay and task synchronization. These limitations are intensified when multi-operators at multi-sites are collaboratively teleoperating multi-robots to achieve a certain task. In this paper, a new modeling and control method for Internet-based cooperative teleoperation is developed. Combining the Petri Net model and event-based planning and control theory, the new method provides an efficient way to model the concurrence and complexity of the Internet-based cooperative teleoperation. It also provides an efficient analysis tool to study the stability, transparency and synchronization of the system. Furthermore, the new modeling and control method enables us to design an Internet-based cooperative telerobotic system that is reliable, safe and intelligent. This new method has been experimentally implemented in a three-site test bed consisting of robotic laboratories in the USA, Hong Kong and Japan. The experimental results have verified the theoretical development, and further demonstrated the advantages of the new modeling and control method.