A detailed examination of current control strategies for workstation teletheses suggests that a hybrid strategy encompassing both motion specific and task specific control concepts represents the optimal compromise between the design issues of speed, versatility and operational simplicity. Task specific robot control has generally been limited to off-line industrial applications and the development of an interactive task specific control capability for use within a hybrid control system was therefore adopted as the primary research objective.

Software was developed for the high-level control of an RTX robot arm within a workstation environment. The RTX manipulator is limited in several respects but has been accepted as an inexpensive research tool by many organizations within the rehabilitation robotics community. Task specific control is achieved by geometrically modelling the environment and then interrogating the model to obtain task planning parameters. The cognitive load experienced by telethesis users has been reduced through the implementation of positional autonomy. System versatility is enhanced by a multi-level shelving capability which increases the effective storage area available within the workstation. The complexity of the control software configuration process has been reduced through the creation of a simple data specification syntax.

The software was refined using an iterative series of user trials and procedural modifications. An evaluation of the final system yielded a positive response from trial participants while revealing several areas which require further research.

Theses