No abstract

No abstract

The new task lines and motion guides approaches to telerobotics are described. Motion guides is a new paradigm for teleoperation of a robot where the path is teleoperated rather than the robot, and the robot is constrained to follow the path. Continuous commands to the robot are only onedimensional: forward, back, or halt along the motion guide. Task lines have subtasks attached to motion guides. The task lines and motion guides have been implemented in a virtual reality environment to enable task description and execution in a natural, virtual reality graphics environment rather than via direct interaction with a command program. Subtasks are represented in the virtual reality environment by icons attached to the motion guides. The combination of task lines and motion guides is valuable for ground control of Space Station robots, which is the initial application for this technology.

In this paper we present a solution to the formation initialization (FI) problem for N distributed spacecraft located in deep space. Our solution to the FI problem is based on a three-stage sky search procedure that reduces the FI problem for N spacecraft to the simpler problem of initializing a set of sub-formations. An analytical proof demonstrating that our algorithm guarantees formation initialization for N spacecraft constrained to a single plane is presented. An upper bound on the time to initialize a planar formation is also provided. We then demonstrate our FI algorithm in simulation using NASA's five-spacecraft Terrestrial Planet Finder mission as an example.

No abstract