Technologies for control of advanced telerobotics

It is desirable to use advanced robots for difficult, dirty and dangerous tasks, rather than humans. The capabilities of robots are limited by their dextrous manipulation abilities. Current hardware provided by the industrial partner gives robots manipulation capabilities comparable to humans, but use is now fundamentally limited by front-end control systems. To overcome this limitation, we will develop a new design of control system, based around a "base station" that uses ultra- wide-band signals to locate "locator" antennas precisely within the unit. These antennas will be placed on gloves worn by human operators. This will offer a simple, ergonomic method to communicate the location of the human operator's hand and hence effectively control the robotic hand. The proposed system has also exciting applications in the performance industry for large sets control with accurate manipulation and also in medical systems as precise surgery robotic.