Telerobotic requirements for sensing, navigation, and communications

The coming decade will see a wide variety of large and small unmanned vehicle systems emerging from laboratories to tackle real-world applications. These systems will not only perform reconnaissance and inspection tasks, but also do real physical work, such as installing subsea completions in offshore oilfields. This paper is intended to promote an appreciation of the broad range of telerobotic systems which offer opportunities for microwave and analogous technologies to support required functions of navigation, sensing, and communication. One thrust is to identify some of the many significant dimensions of variability between different systems characterizable as "telerobotic"-dimensions which accommodate a wide variety of system concepts not yet explored. The specific details of an application's requirements-in terms of functionality, performance, and environment-sensitively affect the tradeoffs leading to an optimally cost effective system design approach.<>