Editorial: Shared Control for Tele-Operation Systems

Abstract

Tele-operation systems have been extensively studied in the literature and used in various robotic applications, such as in surgery, search and rescue, space exploration, nuclear decommissioning, etc. However, most traditional tele-operation systems adopt a leader-follower paradigm, where the teleoperated robot follows the human operator's guidance. This unilateral interaction does not leverage the robot's autonomy and imposes cognitive and physical loads on the human operator. Conversely, if the robot's strengths such as local sensing and accurate, fast execution capabilities are fully utilized, the human's control effort can be reduced while simultaneously increasing task efficiency and performance. Therefore, shared control between a human and a robot is essential to develop an advanced teleoperation system. However, designing shared control for teleoperation systems raises many challenges. From the robot's perspective, decision marking must be in place to address questions such as when the robot should follow the human, when it should not, and what to do if there are conflicts between the two. The designer must also be aware of how the human adapts to the robot's behavior, and how the latter's design should incorporate such human motor adaptation.