Remote Task‐level Commanding of Centaur over Time Delay

Remote operation of robots on the lunar surface by ground controllers poses unique human‐robot interaction challenges due to time delay and constrained bandwidth. One strategy for addressing these challenges is to provide task‐level commanding of robots by a ground controller. Decision‐support tools are being developed at JSC for remote task‐level commanding over time‐delay. The approach is to provide ground procedures that guide a controller when executing task‐level command sequences and aid awareness of the state of command execution in the robot. This approach is being evaluated using the Centaur robot at JSC. The Centaur Central Commander provides a task‐level command interface that executes on the robot side of the delay. Decision support tools have been developed for a human Supervisor in the JSC Cockpit to use when interacting with the Centaur Central Commander. Commands to the Central Commander are defined as instructions in a procedure. Sequences of these instructions are grouped into procedures...