Developed by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Components
Oculus Rift/HTC Vive
Multiple Sensor Displays
Baxter humanoid robot from Rethink Robotics
Remote operation of manufacturing equipment
"By teleoperating robots from home, blue-collar workers would be able to tele-commute..." - CSAIL postdoc Jeffrey Lipton
Applications
Direct Model
User's vision is directly coupled to the robot's state
Delayed signal could lead to nausea and headaches
User’s viewpoint is limited to one perspective
Cyber-Physical Model
User is separate from the robot
The user interacts with a virtual copy of the robot and the environment
Requires much more data, and specialized spaces
Teleoperation Design
How it Works
Provides a sense of co-locationby mapping human’s space into the virtual space, and the virtual space is then mapped into the robot space
Takes the 2-D images that are displayed to each eye instead of extracting 2-D information from each camera, building out a full 3-D model of the environment, and then processing and redisplay the data
Cool Features
Allows user to feel like they are "inside the robot's head"
Robotic performance with a human touch
"Gameifying" manufacturing processes
Ability to perform precise actions
Works from hundreds of miles away
Strengths
Better performance than competition (grasping 95% more of the time than competition, 57% faster at task completion)
Scalable and extendable with proper environment
Breaking ground in new teleoperation approach
Weaknesses
Early stages
Costly to implement
Cumbersome due to sensor data
Sickness
3-4
Low degree of simulator sickness
Related Products
General manufacturing, machinery meant for predefined tasks
Robotic arm operation assistance, small skill-set prone to malfunction
Future Applications/Conclusion
Potential expansion to any manual task
Look forward to further progress and development
Particularly interested in seeing where the new approach leads(first person view, combination of direct and cyber-physical model)