Date of Award

12-1994

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Dean Schneider, PhD

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine an input device for the Air Force's generic telerobotics architecture for large aircraft maintenance and repair. One area of concern is the human to machine interface, more specifically, which manual controller should be used for the specified tasks in this architecture. We mailed a survey to 68 companies in order to compile a list of possible input devices that the telerobotics architecture could use. 32 companies responded which gave me enough data to generate a list that described the physical traits of the input devices. We then divided the required tasks into actions and analyzed them to generate a list of traits required by an input device. Both the task analysis and device listings were combined mathematically to form a performance table which revealed the possible devices that could perform each individual action. To aid in development of the Air Force's generic telerobotics architecture, we integrated four input devices into a VME based operating system called CHIMERA. These four devices represent the four different sensor types that are currently available in today's market. The first device is a mouse which relays position changes of the mouse to the computer. The second device is a joystick that can be used in two different ways. The joystick can measure position data of the hand position or it can measure the displacement of the hand from the center of the total movement. The third device is a six degree of-freedom (DOF) spaceball that measures the amount of force for position data and rotational data. The fourth device is a Schilling manual controller which has a one-to-one mapping from the controller joints to the manipulator joints.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GE-ENG-94D-04

DTIC Accession Number

ADA289215

Comments

The author's Vita page is omitted.

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