The Use of Virtual Environments in Internet-Based Teleoperation

This thesis presents our work in integrating virtual environments with Internet-based teleoperation to provide solutions for the problems associated with current Internet-based teleoperation systems. The main issues investigated include the modelling of dynamic environments for synchronising virtual environments with the physical environment of teleoperation, path planning in a virtual environment for automatic control of the remote robot, and a system framework for supporting the integration of the above mechanisms with other components of Internet-based teleoperation systems and their distribution over the Internet within a client-server structure. To model a dynamic environment, a single image-based method has been proposed. The method exploits the known features of the scene and their geometric properties to set up the camera system and establish the spatial relationships between the objects and the constraints for recovering algorithms. The acquisition of the model of a particular object is performed by a semi-automatic process. The identification of the model parameters is conducted by searching the relevant area on the image, based on the alignment technique. In path planning, the problems with representing the physical processes of proximity sensing, and contact and collision detection, in virtual environments have been approached by decomposing the graphical models of the virtual environment and mapping them into the configuration space of the robot manipulator. The difficulties associated with the high dimensionality of the configuration space were dealt with by planning global paths, accompanied by local pose planning In establishing the framework of the Internet-based teleoperation system, we followed a client-server architecture in order to conform to current web-browsing technology. Within the system architecture, the components are organised in a layered structure for effective administration of the components of different functionality and the complex interactions between them. The information exchange between the client and server is realised by using a specially defined protocol. With this framework, we have been able to distribute the virtual environment, and thus extend into an Internet-based teleoperation system the control methodologies that are usually found in conventional robotic systems.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

De Montfort University

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Tan, Jiacheng

Licence

• https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/c2594d95-1193-4f7d-964a-2e2301957385/download