Towards multi-tasking teleoperated robot teams

遥控机器人是由人类用户从远处控制的机器人。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迅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。清洁能源（海上风力和水下设施的维护）、工业4.0、机器人和运输行业对遥操作的需求正在加速。预计到2026年，全球市场将达到765亿美元，并将以每年超过20%的速度增长，直到2050年。这种强劲的行业需求不仅是为了更普遍的远程操作，而且也是为了越来越强大的远程操作。为了满足行业对更熟练的遥操作的需求，该建议提供了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多个可能相互冲突的遥操作命令。与当前的远程操作模式相比-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-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他们的资源，从而更经济。他们也将发现在重要的实际情况下，目前的遥操作范例是不够的应用。例如，当与广泛蔓延且快速推进的火灾战斗时，远程机器人团队中的每个机器人可能在其他机器人面临其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来调查环境并同时对所有紧急情况做出响应。在短期内，该研究计划有三个目标-开发分析和控制设计框架：1）用于具有切换生成树的机器人网络的多用户远程导航; 2）用于弹性机器人网络的多用户远程导航; 3）用于机器人网络的多用户远程操纵。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，发现有界潜力以保持机器人网络的连通性，将决策和弹性动态被动耦合到机器人网络的动态，以及机器人网络与多个用户的耦合的适当设计，以使整个遥控操作系统相对于多维功率是被动的连接到用户和环境的端口。的创新-在设计的决策和弹性动力学和各种子系统之间的耦合-将推进遥操作控制，更一般地说，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.