Remote visual servoing of a robot manipulator via Internet2

Visual servoing is a powerful approach to enlarge the applications of robotic systems by incorporating visual information into the control system. On the other hand, teleoperation - the use of machines in a remote way - is increasing the number of applications in many domains. This paper presents a remote visual servoing system using only partial camera calibration and exploiting the high bandwidth of Internet2 to stream video information. The underlying control scheme is based on the image-based philosophy for direct visual servoing - computing the applied torque inputs to the robot based in error signals defined in the image plane - and evoking a velocity field strategy for guidance. The novelty of this paper is a remote visual servoing with the following features: (1) full camera calibration is unnecessary, (2) direct visual servoing does not neglect the robot nonlinear dynamics, and (3) the novel velocity field control approach is utilized. Experiments carried out between two laboratories demonstrated the effectiveness of the application.