The authors have coined the term teleautonomous to describe methods for producing intelligent action at a distance. Teleautomation goes beyond autonomous control in that it blends in human intelligence and action as appropriate. It goes beyond teleoperation in that it incorporates as much autonomy as is possible or reasonable. A novel approach for solving one of the fundamental problems facing teleautonomous systems is discussed in detail: the need to overcome time delays due to telemetry and signal propagation. Concepts called time and position clutches are introduced; these allow the time and position frames, respectively, between the local user control and the remote device being controlled to be desynchronized. The design and implementation of these mechanisms lead to substantial telemanipulation performance improvements, including the novel result of improvements even in the absence of time delays. The controls also yield a simple protocol for handoffs of the control of manipulation tasks between local operators and remote systems.
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