Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: doctor@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Terry Fong)
Subject: NASA Ames Antarctica TROV Project Status (10/13/93)
Message-ID: <1993Oct13.225944.10264@kronos.arc.nasa.gov>
Summary: status information for virtual environment teleoperations project
Keywords: virtual environments, teleoperations, Antarctica
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Organization: NASA ARC/ Information Science Division
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 22:59:44 GMT
Lines: 57

Hi all,

This is the first release of status information for the Ames Antarctic
Telepresence Remotely Operated Vehicle (TROV) Project. The goal of
this remote operations experiment is to test virtual environment based
techniques in an operational environment which might be used to remotely
operate a science rover on another planet.

The TROV is a modified Phantom II (Deep Ocean Engineering, San
Leandro, CA) remotely operated vehicle capable of 1,000 foot depth.
The TROV is equipped with 4 cameras (pan/tilt stereo pair, forward
looking zoom, and fixed down), acoustic navigation (Marquest SHARPS
transceiver pair), science sensor suite (dissolved oxygen, ambient
light, directed light, temperature), and a 3-DOF manipulator
(Benthos). The vehicle may be teleoperated "locally" by an operator
with a control box (switches and three hand controllers) or "remotely"
via Internet.

Remote operations will be conducted via a satellite link from NASA
Ames to McMurdo Station, Antarctica. The link will provide Internet
services from Ames to McMurdo (primarily TCP/IP) and a single NTSC
feed from the TROV. Operators at NASA Ames will control the TROV from
the "Virtual Environment Vehicle Interface" (VEVI) running on Silicon
Graphics workstations. This interface provides operators with remote
control capabilities ranging from direct teleoperation using stereo
video to fully immersive virtual environment based supervisory
control.  VEVI has been used previously at Ames to remotely operate a
Stanford Aerospace Robotics Laboratory air-bearing robot (Stanford
University) and the Russian Marsokhod rover (in Moscow).
 
The field team, consisting of Dr. Carol Stoker, Dale Andersen, Don Barch,
Jay Steele, and Roxanne Streeter, have all left the U.S. for McMurdo Station.
All of them except Dale have arrived safely (Dale is still in transit),
and have located the equipment shipping containers.  We have been in
telephone contact with them, and are now preparing for the initial
operating tests next week (10/18), when they get the equipment unpacked
and out to the first survey location.  They will be joined at McMurdo
by Dr. Jim Barry of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and
Drs. Jim McClintock and Bill Baker of the University of Alabama at
Birmingham, who will provide Benthic Ecology expertise for the science
surveys and sample collection tasks.
 
The remote operations team at NASA Ames, consisting of Dr. Butler Hine,
Terry Fong, Daryl Rasmussen, Dr. Mike Sims, and Eric Miles, are busy
preparing the Control Center in the Automation Sciences Research Facility
for operation next week.  In addition to the core engineering team, we
will have guest scientists from the Hopkins Marine Station and the
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, among other institutions,
operating the vehicle from Ames.

Terry Fong
NASA Ames Research Center
-- 
_______________________________________________________________________________
"Well, if you can't believe what you    Terry Fong <terry@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>
 read in a comic book, what can you     NASA-AMES M/S 269-3, Moffett Field, CA
 believe?" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose           (415) 604-6063 office, 604-6081 lab
