The Role of Computer Graphics in Teleoperation

Abstract

Computer graphics techniques developed by the Advanced Teleoperation (ATOP) Project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the control of remote manipulators, primarily for space applications, are briefly described. The results, however, are also relevant for terrestrial remote control problems. A key JPL-developed technique is the high-fidelity calibration of graphic images to actual TV camera images. This enables the operator to overlay 3-D graphics models of robot arms and objects over given 2-D TV views of live scenes and to generate valuable synthetic TV views of the same scenes.