User Voice Assistance Tool for Teleoperation

Abstract

Summary.A teleoperation tool that allows to interact with the remote environment in a more comfortable and flexible way is presented in this chapter. Working over a classical teleoperation environment, the goal is to reach a higher level of abstraction in the user commands. The tool allows the operator to interact with the remote environment through natural language recognition. This system is able to interpret and execute the commands formulated by the operator in natural language, according to the elements present in the remote environment. An error feedback module has been designed in order to take into account the on-line correcting information expressed by the operator during the execution of a task in the remote environment. The proposed voice assistance tool has been designed as a module in a novel teleoperation architecture, which allows to integrate multiple assistance tools. IntroductionTeleoperation involves cooperation between the operations made by the user in a local environment and the actions exerted by the physical components in the remote environment. In a robotic teleoperated system the operator acts over a robot and the elements in the remote environment to perform the appropriate task [1]. Usually, teleoperation has been used in dangerous or inaccessible environments for the operator such as nuclear industry, reactor maintenance, spatial activities or dismantling tasks [1,2]. However, the number of teleoperated systems has been significantly increased in the last years due to the possibilities offered by the World Wide Web [3] and the new tools that offer new possibilities to manage the remote environment.In occasions, the environment is poorly known, and the conditions of perception are difficult. The operation reliability depends thus on all the data sensed around the work area and the way they are reproduced for the operator [2]. Classical telerobotic systems are usually composed of a vision system and a force sensor in the remote environment and a master arm in the local environment in such a way that the operator can manage the robot based on the information reported by these sensors.However, some of the tasks made by the operator in a teleoperated way require a need of intelligent automation. In teleoperation, this intelligent automation M.