Towards multi-tasking teleoperated robot teams

遥控机器人是由人类用户远程控制的机器人。它们对于需要在未知和动态环境中对不可预测的紧急情况作出快速反应的任务至关重要，因为这些环境无法进入或危险，因此无法部署人员。在清洁能源（海上风能和水下设施的维护）、工业4.0、机器人和运输行业，对远程操作的需求正在加速。到2026年，全球市场预计将达到765亿美元，到2050年将以每年20%以上的速度增长。这种强劲的行业需求不仅是对更普遍的，而且对日益强大的远程操作。针对行业对更熟练的遥操作的需求，本提案提出赋予遥操作机器人团队多任务处理能力。总体目标是使远程机器人团队能够同时执行几个可能相互冲突的远程操作命令。与目前的远程操作模式（一个或多个机器人在一个或几个人类操作员的指导下执行单一任务）相比，多任务远程操作机器人团队将具有更高的灵活性、敏捷性和弹性。他们将更充分地利用资源，从而更经济地利用资源。它们还将在重要的实际场景中找到应用，在这些场景中，当前的遥操作范式是不够的。例如，在与大范围快速推进的火灾作战时，远程机器人团队中的每个机器人可能会在其他机器人面临紧急情况的同时面临不同的紧急情况。因此，多个用户必须远程操作机器人团队，以调查环境并同时对所有紧急情况做出反应。在短期内，研究计划有三个目标-开发分析和控制设计框架：1)具有交换生成树的多用户机器人网络远程导航；2)弹性机器人网络多用户远程导航；3)机器人网络的多用户远程操作。每个短期目标都需要制定其控制问题和相关的分布式决策和弹性动态，发现有界势以保持机器人网络的连通性，决策和弹性动态与机器人网络动态的被动耦合，并适当设计机器人网络与多个用户的耦合，使整个遥操作系统相对于将其连接到用户和环境的多维电源端口而言无源。决策和弹性动力学设计以及各个子系统之间的耦合方面的创新将促进远程操作控制，更广泛地说，是多机器人系统的控制。

Teleoperated robots are robots controlled by human users from afar. They are essential for tasks that demand swift responses to unpredictable emergencies in unknown and dynamic environments in which humans cannot be deployed because those environments are inaccessible or dangerous. The needs for teleoperation are accelerating in the clean energy (maintenance of off-shore wind and underwater installations), industry 4.0, robotics, and transportation industries. The global market is predicted to reach $76.5bn US by 2026 and to grow at a rate of over 20% year-over-year until 2050. This robust industry demand is not only for more pervasive but also for increasingly capable teleoperation. In response to the industry need for more skillful teleoperation, this proposal offers to endow teleoperated robot teams with multi-tasking capabilities. The overarching goal is to empower remote robot teams to execute several, possibly conflicting, teleoperation commands at once. Compared to the current teleoperation paradigm - one or multiple robots carrying out a single task under the guidance of one or several human operators - multi-tasking teleoperated robot teams will have increased flexibility, agility and resilience. They will use their resources more fully and, thus, more economically. They will also find application in important practical scenarios in which the current teleoperation paradigm is insufficient. For example, when fighting a wide-spread and rapidly advancing fire, each robot of a remote team of robots may face a different emergency at the same time as the other robots face their emergencies. Thus, multiple users must teleoperate the robot team to survey the environment and to respond to all emergencies simultaneously. In the short-term, the research program has three objectives - to develop analysis and control design frameworks: 1) for multiuser tele-navigation of robot networks with switching spanning trees; 2) for multiuser tele-navigation of resilient robot networks; and 3) for multiuser tele-manipulation of robot networks. Each short-term objective entails formulation of its control problem and an associated distributed decision-making and resilience dynamics, discovery of bounded potentials to maintain the connectivity of the robot network, passive coupling of the decision and of the resilience dynamics to the dynamics of the robot network, and appropriate design of the coupling of the robot network to the multiple users to render the overall teleoperator system passive with respect to the multidimensional power ports that connect it to the users and the environment. The innovations - in the designs of the decision and resilience dynamics and of the couplings between various subsystems - will advance both teleoperation control and, more generally, the control of multirobot systems.