Manual control of the Langley Laboratory Telerobotic Manipulator

The authors describe the LTM (Laboratory Telerobotic Manipulator), its installation at Langley Research Center, and plans for a comparative evaluation study of various control input devices to the system. The LTM is a full, dual-armed, force reflecting, master/slave manipulator in its basic form. It also has full robotic capability, with both slave arms functioning under total computer control. The control input devices to be studied will include: control from the system's basic master arms, six-degrees-of-freedom hand controllers, Kraft minimasters, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) force-reflecting hand controller. The initial master/slave control studies will consist of evaluating performance of simple task board operations as well as more realistic tasks typical of those a manipulator system might actually be required to perform in space.<>