Virtual reality in telerobotics: an overview and two case studies

An overview of the virtual reality (VR) concept and its application to telerobotics/teleoperation is provided. This includes an exposition of the key features of a general VR system such as multimodality and real-time interaction between the human operator and the virtual environment (VE). The paper focuses particularly on the issues related with the haptic (touch) interaction between the operator and the VE. The general goal of such a system is the integration of the functionality of the human hand within a virtual world. Two representative case studies are discussed, which illustrate many issues and show the capabilities of VR-based teleoperation/telecontrol systems.