Design of the Langley laboratory telerobotic manipulator

NASA Langley Research Center has developed a novel, precision, dual-arm telerobotic manipulator system which has seven degrees of freedom in each arm. As delivered, a master-slave control mode is implemented from a pair of kinematically identical master arms with force reflection; however, robotic or manual control from a variety of different input devices can be implemented. The Langley laboratory telerobotic manipulator (LTM), its installation at Langley, and plans for a comparative evaluation study of various control input devices to the system are described. A discussion is presented of the objectives and philosophy of the design and the control electronics.<
>