Advanced operator interface design with preview/predictive displays for ground-controlled space telerobotic servicing

Recent advances in real-time 3-D graphics and graphical user interface (GUI) technologies enable development of advanced operator interfaces for telerobotic systems. In particular, we have employed preview/predictive displays with calibrated graphics overlay and X/Motif- based GUIs for efficient and reliable ground-controlled space telerobotic servicing under communication time delay. High fidelity preview/predictive displays have been achieved by an operator-interactive camera calibration and object localization technique that enables reliable matching of simulated 3-D graphics models with the remote site task environment. The developed graphical operator interface supporting telerobotic operations with high-fidelity preview/predictive displays have been successfully utilized in demonstrating a ground- simulated ORU (Orbital Replacement Unit) changeout remote servicing task by remotely operating a robot arm at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory under a varying time delay of up to several seconds. The positioning alignment accuracy achieved by this technique with four camera views was about +/- 5 mm for a tool insertion in the servicing task.