Intelligent viewing control for robotic and automation systems

We present a new system for supervisory automated control of multiple remote cameras. Our primary purpose in developing this system has been to provide capability for knowledge- based, `hands-off' viewing during execution of teleoperation/telerobotic tasks. The reported technology has broader applicability to remote surveillance, telescience observation, automated manufacturing workcells, etc. We refer to this new capability as `Intelligent Viewing Control (IVC),' distinguishing it from a simple programmed camera motion control. In the IVC system, camera viewing assignment, sequencing, positioning, panning, and parameter adjustment (zoom, focus, aperture, etc.) are invoked and interactively executed by real-time by a knowledge-based controller, drawing on a priori known task models and constraints, including operator preferences. This multi-camera control is integrated with a real-time, high-fidelity 3D graphics simulation, which is correctly calibrated in perspective to the actual cameras and their platform kinematics (translation/pan-tilt). Such merged graphics- with-video design allows the system user to preview and modify the planned (`choreographed') viewing sequences. Further, during actual task execution, the system operator has available both the resulting optimized video sequence, as well as supplementary graphics views from arbitrary perspectives. IVC, including operator-interactive designation of robot task actions, is presented to the user as a well-integrated video-graphic single screen user interface allowing easy access to all relevant telerobot communication/command/control resources. We describe and show pictorial results of a preliminary IVC system implementation for telerobotic servicing of a satellite.© (1994) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.