Telerobotics, Automation and Human Supervisory Control

For the past three decades, the author and his colleagues in the MIT
Man-Machine Systems Laboratory have been carrying out experimental research in the
area of teleoperation, telerobotics, and supervisory control - a new form of
technology that allows humans to work through machines in hazardous environments and
control complex systems such as aircraft and nuclear power plants. This timely
reference brings together a variety of theories and technologies that have emerged
in a number of fields of application, describing common themes, presenting
experiments and hardware embodiments as examples, and discussing the advantages and
the drawbacks of this new form of human-machine interaction.There are many places -
such as outer space, the oceans, and nuclear, biologically, and chemically toxic
environments - that are inaccessible or hazardous to humans but in which work needs
to be done. Telerobotics - remote supervision by human operators of robotic or
semiautomatic devices - is a way to enter these difficult environments. Yet it
raises a host of problems, such as the retrieval of sensory information for the
human operator, and how to control the remote devices with sufficient dexterity. In
its complete coverage of the theoretical and technological aspects of telerobotics
and human-computer cooperation in the control of complex systems, this book moves
beyond the simplistic notion of humans versus automation to provide the necessary
background for exploring a new and informed cooperative relationship between humans
and machines. Thomas B. Sheridan is Professor of Engineering and Applied Psychology
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Contents: Introduction. Theory and
Models of Supervisory Control: Frameworks and Fragments. Supervisory Control of
Anthropomorphic Teleoperators for Space, Undersea, and Other Applications.
Supervisory Control in Transportation, Process, and Other Automated Systems. Social
Implications of Telerobotics, Automation, and Supervisory Control.