Design and Implementation of a 3D Collaborative Telerobotic Simulator

Three-dimensional robotic simulations represent a way to protect the physical integrity of both the robot and its operator. Among their applications, teleoperation enable to command robot manipulations of hazardous 3D objects (such as radioactive or explosive ones) on a remote site. To some telerobotic applications there is the need for two or more operators due to task complexity or due to the object being handled. A collaborative robotic simulator would provide a multi-user environment to perform tasks that are split to generate interdependence between operators. This paper presents a simulated 3D telerobotic system where two 5 degrees-of-freedom robots perform collaborative tasks. The system, called CollBot4us (Collaborative roBot for Us), proposes a task and continuously evaluate the scenario to determine when operators have reached a specified goal and, at the same time, it captures metrics that can be used to assess the collaboration process. While using CollBot4us operators see a single scene from their own perspective but the operations they command come from geographically distinct locations. CollBot4us can be used for teaching robotics through collaboration or teaching collaboration strategies through robotics.