Platforms like gantries, booms, aircraft and submersibles are equipped with cameras. People teleoperate such platforms to capture desired views of a scene or a target. To avoid collisions with the environment and occluded views, such platforms are often equipped with redundant degrees-of-freedom. The operator must manually coordinate multiple degrees-of-freedom in order to get desired views. Tracking moving targets becomes especially tedious and often requires several highly skilled operators. Visual servoing some degrees-of-freedom may reduce operator burden and improve tracking performance. This video showcases the results using such an approach.

Cameras are often mounted on platforms that can move like rovers, booms, gantries and aircraft. People operate such platforms to capture desired views of a scene or a target. To avoid collisions with the environment and occlusions, such platforms often possess redundant degrees-of-freedom. As a result, manual manipulating of such platforms demands much skill. Visual-servoing some degrees-of-freedom may reduce operator burden and improve tracking performance. This concept, which we call human-in-the-loop visual-servoing, is demonstrated And applies a /spl alpha/ /spl rarr/ /spl beta/ /spl rarr/ /spl gamma/ filter and feedforward controller to a broadcast camera boom.

There are many features to take into consideration when designing servoed vision for robot control, especially if there are redundant degrees-of-freedom (DOF). When human teleoperated platforms like rovers, booms, gantries, aircraft and submersibles are involved, visual-servoing is particularly challenging. Along with the kinematics and dynamics characteristics in the robot DOF one must consider the human-in-the-loop. Another factor that must be considered is potential motion conflicts arising from the shared man-machine control of the camera and can lead to unstable performance. When the DOF are redundant, the tracking problem becomes more complicated because there are many ways to perform tracking. This paper illustrates these issues and suggests control approaches to resolve them.