THE EFFECTS ON OPERATOR PERFORMANCE OF FORCE REFLECTION IN A RATE CONTROLLER

THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PHASE I EFFORT IS TO ESTABLISH, BY MEANS OF A DIRECTED RESEARCH EFFORT, THE MANNER IN WHICH ACTIVE FORCE FEEDBACK IN A RATE CONTROLLER CAN IMPROVE THE OPERABILITY OF A TELEOPERATED SYSTEM IN THE PERFORMANCE OF COMPLEX TASKS. CONSIDERATIONS SUCH AS EASE OF TRAINING, OPERATOR FATIGUE, ABILITY TO PERFORM REPETITIVE TASKS, AND IMPACTS ON OPERATOR RELIABILITY WILL BE AMONG THE TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED AS PART OF THIS RESEARCH. AVAILABLE HARDWARE WILL BE USED IN THIS RESEARCH, AUGMENTED BY ANY ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS REQUIRED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FORCE REFLECTIVE RATE CONTROLLER. THE TESTBED MANIPULATOR USED IN THE EXPERIMENTS IS AN ALREADY EXISTING, THREE-DEGREES-OF-FREEDOM ARM OF A UNIQUE DESIGN. CLOSED LOOP CONTROL OF THE SYSTEM WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE USE OF EXISTING CONTROL ALGORITHMS FOR THE ARM, WITH MODIFICATIONS MADE FOR THE ACTIVE FORCE FEEDBACK COMPONENT TO BE ADDED TO THE CONTROL SCHEME. EMPHASIS IS ON ACHIEVING INCREASED PERFORMANCE CAPABILITY WITH INNOVATIVE, BUT LOW COST, SIMPLE AND COMPACT TECHNOLOGIES. FUTURE APPLICATION SCENARIOS ARE FOR IMPROVED MOBILITY AND PORTABILITY OF ROBOTIC SYSTEMS AND CONTROL CENTERS TO INCREASE PRACTICALITY FOR A BROADER RANGE OF APPLICATIONS.