Legacy Disruptors in Applied Telerobotics: Improving the Machine, the Interface, and the Human

Abstract

The workshop will bring together individuals from the broad field of Robotics and Human-Robot Interaction research, to discuss the future of Human-Machine Interfaces in telerobotics. The focus is to discuss the legacy issues that occur in telerobotics and to draw on innovative approaches that might be introduced. The workshop aims to encourage discussion of new methods and technologies for disrupting existing legacy systems in telerobotics. Examples of established systems from research and industrial applications will be reviewed to identify the lessons learned, and considered alongside areas that have high levels of innovation. The workshop invites participation across industry, academia and throughout all applications in telerobotics. The two primary goals of the workshop are (i) to identify the technologies and methods that could introduce improvements to existing operations, and (ii) to capture the best practices in human-machine interaction that have been identified through a long history of telerobotics operations. The proposed speakers come from a rich variety of backgrounds, aiming to drive a diverse and cross-collaborative discussion. Speakers bring experience on the challenges and insights of updating legacy telerobotics systems (be it surgical, nuclear, or space), and will present discipline specific solutions brought to these challenges. A plenary discussion will collate the experiences from the participants and focus on a roadmap and general guidelines for best practices moving forward. We expect that the work discussed in the submitted papers will present cutting-edge applications in telerobotics across all fields, giving a great overview on innovative solutions in applications of telerobotics. Additional aims include: (1) Identify lessons learned and features that can carry forward from established tele-operation systems. (2) Provide an insight and encourage innovation from new applications of tele-operation (e.g., search and rescue). (3) Produce a clear roadmap for the future of teleoperating system design and guidelines of best practice to adopt