Charles Redmond

Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

June 1, 1993
(Phone: 202/358-1757)

Jim Doyle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-5011)

RELEASE: 93-100

NASA TO COMMERCIALIZE REMOTE-CONTROL TECHNOLOGY

A remote-control technology used by NASA scientists to

guide a robot in a recent cross-country test soon will be turned
over to private industry.

The remote-control technology is being licensed to a

private firm for commercial development, said Dr. Antal Bejczy,
the experiment Technical Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. The firm's identity is being
withheld while negotiations are in progress.

In the test, researchers at JPL used a new,

graphically-oriented program to remotely control -- or
"teleoperate" -- a robotic arm at NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, Md.

This teleoperation technique is designed for free-flying

robots that would service orbiting satellites, and also has many
potential uses on Earth, according to Bejczy.

Possible terrestrial applications for teleoperations

include nuclear or toxic waste site cleanup, decommissioning of
hazardous facilities, special emergency medical operations,
construction and building planning, and remotely operated
highway maintenance.

In the recent JPL-Goddard experiment, a robot arm equipped

with a power screwdriver was placed in front of a mockup of a
satellite at the Goddard center. The satellite was fitted with
a replaceable module designed to be changed out by astronauts or
robots.

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The robot arm's job was to insert the screwdriver through a

18-inch (45- centimeter) long hole to reach a latching mechanism
that holds the replaceable module on the satellite, then to
unlatch and remove the module. Finally, the robot arm was to
place the new module on the satellite's frame and latch it in
place.

Throughout the experiment, the arm was controlled by an

operator thousands of miles away in California.

JPL researchers developed a software program that allows

the remote operator to superimpose high-fidelity computer
graphics models of the robot arm, screwdriver and satellite
module onto television pictures of the live scene.

These synthetic TV camera views make visible the robot's

critical motion events that otherwise are hidden from the
operator in a normal TV camera view, said Bejczy.

"The operator can generate and predict or preview the

motions without commanding the actual hardware," said Bejczy.
"Moreover, the operator can see the consequences of motion
commands in real time, without time delay, through the
simulation method overlaying the actual work scene."

After verifying an action of the robot arm and its result

through the synthetic TV view, the operator then commands the
robot arm and tool to actually execute the next action.

During the test, computer commands were sent from JPL to

Goddard over the Internet computer network. TV views of the
robot arm and satellite mockup were sent back to the JPL control
station over NASA's satellite TV system.

"The module exchange task was originally designed to be

performed by astronauts working in pressurized suits in the
Space Shuttle's cargo bay," said Bejczy. "The success of the
experiment shows that the same work can be done by robotic
hardware controlled from Earth."

Bejczy also said that the graphics-based, remote-control

technique will form the basis for new features added to
commercially available computer graphics software packages.

JPL's work on this experiment is being performed with

funding from NASA's Office of Advanced Concepts and Technology,
Washington, D.C.

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