Active virtual guides as an apparatus for augmented reality based telemanipulation system on the Internet

In many current teleoperation architectures, remote tasks are indirectly performed by a human operator (HO) by means of a virtual environment consisting in a virtual or symbolic representation of the remote site. In order to achieve virtual tasks, the interaction of the HO and the virtual representation is monitored. Monitoring results are subsequently translated into a sequence of instructions sent to the remote robot for actual execution. This paper focuses on different strategies designed to allow a user-friendly operator interaction with the virtual representation in order to achieve complex remote tasks via the Internet. The use of active virtual guides to assist the HO in performing simple or complex tasks with enhanced performance (speed, precision and safety) is also discussed. Techniques such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) combined with Internet-based programming facilities are investigated as part of the proposed teleoperation system named ARITI (acronym for Augmented Reality Interface for Telerobotic applications via Internet).