Telerobotic, telesurgical, and/or surgical robotic devices, systems, and methods employ surgical robotic linkages that may have more degrees of freedom than an associated surgical end effector in space. A processor can calculate a tool motion that includes pivoting of the tool about an aperture site. Linkages movable along a range of configurations for a given end effector position may be driven toward configurations which inhibit collisions. Refined robotic linkages and methods for their use are also provided.

In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides a robot automated mining method. In one embodiment, a method includes a robot positioning a charging component for entry into a drill hole. In one embodiment, a method includes a robot moving a charging component within a drill hole. In one embodiment, a method includes a robot filling a drill hole with explosive material. In one embodiment, a method includes operating a robot within a mining environment.

An autonomous robot with on demand human intervention is disclosed. In various embodiments, a robot operates in an autonomous mode of operation in which the robot performs one or more tasks autonomously without human intervention. The robot determines that a strategy is not available to perform a next task autonomously. In response to the determination, the robot enters a human intervention mode of operation.

A jointed mechanism includes a passive pendulum system attached to and suspended from the multi-axis robot. The system includes one or more position sensors configured to measure a joint angle on the pendulum system, at least one arm, and an end-effector attached to a distal end of the pendulum system. A controller implements a method to selectively control motion of the robot in a plurality of control modes. The control modes include a Cooperative Mode and an Autonomous Mode. The controller is configured to detect contact with the end-effector when operating in the Autonomous Mode, and to automatically initiate a control action in response to the contact. The pendulum system may be a parallelogram arrangement.

Based on data indicative of an area proximate to a robotic device, a scene is generated. Based on information from a knowledge database, a task associated with the scene is identified. A risk threshold is determined based on the scene, the task, and one or more trust thresholds. Based on the risk threshold, a ratio of sub-tasks of the task to be controlled by a user is determined. In accordance with the risk threshold, a user input is received for controlling one or more of the sub-tasks when the ratio dictates that at least one of the sub-tasks requires user intervention.

A motion dependency surgical robotic system (100) employs an independent robotic arm (20) including a first surgical instrument, a dependent robotic arm (21) including a second surgical instrument, and a motion dependency robot controller (104). In operation, the motion dependency robot controller (104) controls an independent motion of the independent robotic arm (20) within a coordinate space responsive to an input signal indicative of the motion of the independent robotic arm (20) within the coordinate space, and further controls a motion of the dependent robotic arm (21) within the coordinate space as a function of a spatial geometric relationship between the independent robotic arm (20) and the dependent robotic arm (21) within the coordinate space. The spatial geometric relationship defines a procedural synchronization between the independent robotic arm (20) and the dependent robotic arm (21) in a synchronized execution of a surgical task by the surgical instruments.

A robot is operated in an autonomous mode of operation in which the robot autonomously selects a strategy to pick up an item. The item is moved from an initial location to a destination location using the selected strategy. It is determined whether one or more strategies are available to pick up the item in response to the item being dropped while the item is being moved from the initial location to the destination location. It is determined that a further strategy is not available to pick up the item. In response to the determination that the further strategy is not available, a human intervention mode of operation is entered.

Telerobotic, telesurgical, and/or surgical robotic devices, systems, and methods employ surgical robotic linkages that may have more degrees of freedom than an associated surgical end effector in space. A processor can calculate a tool motion that includes pivoting of the tool about an aperture site. Linkages movable along a range of configurations for a given end effector position may be driven toward configurations which inhibit collisions. Refined robotic linkages and methods for their use are also provided.

A robot control system includes circuitry configured to: determine a necessity of assisting a robot to complete an automated work, based on environment information of the robot; select a remote operator from candidate remote operators based on stored operator data in response to determining that it is necessary to assist the robot to complete the automated work; transmit the environment information to the selected remote operator via a communication network; receive an operation instruction based on the environment information from the selected remote operator via the communication network; and control the robot to complete the automated work based on the operation instruction.

The present disclosure describes robots, tele-operation systems, methods, and computer program products where a robot is selectively operable in a plurality of control modes. Based on identification of a fault condition (when the robot fails to act in a suitable or sufficient manner), a control mode of the robot can be changed to provide a human operator with more explicit control over the robot. In this way, the fault condition can be resolved by human operator input, and the control modes, AI, or control paradigm for the robot can be trained to perform better in the future.