Enhanced Human-Machine Interfaces for Manual Teleoperation of Robotic Arms in Space

Problem Description

Current manual teleoperation of robotic arms on the ISS requires constant coordination between a team of at least two astronauts and two mission control crew over the course of several hours per operation. All four of these crew members must train for upwards of two years to become a qualified robot operator. Future long-duration missions beyond Earth orbit will require astronaut crews to operate without live support from crews on Earth, spreading astronauts thin both in training and in flight. Reducing the crew hours required to train and perform these robotic arm operations is therefore a key priority toward enabling successful long-duration missions. The current difficulty of robotic arm operations is due in part to the fact that current robotic arm workstations rely primarily on fixed cameras and dual joystick controls, requiring operators to build a detailed mental model of the environment and of the robotic arm's kinematics without an intuitive tactile or kinesthetic sense of the arm and its surroundings.

Research Aims

A robotic arm control system was developed to provide human-robot control and feedback. In addition to control software, this system integrates leader-follower control hardware and a custom haptic armband. Experiments at NASA Johnson Space Center and at UC Davis will evaluate how teleoperation performance is affected by joystick control, leader-follower control, haptic feedback, and force feedback. Performance will be evaluated in terms of the speed, accuracy, safety, and mental workload observed in manual teleoperation dexterity tasks using Universal Robots UR5e and Trossen VX300S robotic arms.

Associated Students

• Brian Huo
• Zoe Wilf
• Phoebe Yeh
• Elizabeth Voloshin
• Marlu Martens
• Jingtian Liu
• Angel Rodas

Associated Publications

• Coming soon!