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During the STS-69 Space Shuttle flight in September, 1995, the Manipulator Position Display (MPD) and the Joint Angle Display (JAD) were used for the first time on-orbit. The title of the evaluation was Development Test Objective (DTO) 831, “Manipulator Position Display as an Aid to Remote Manipulator System (RMS) Operators.” The MPD and JAD provided hand controller input cues and situational awareness cues to assist the RMS operator. These two displays were evaluated by the STS-69 astronauts while operating the Space Shuttle's Remote Manipulator System (RMS). The display software ran on the standard Space Shuttle laptop computers, the Payload and General Support Computers (PGSC's), and the displays were viewed by the astronauts on the PGSC monitors. RMS position, attitude, joint angle, and mode data were used to derive the display cues. This paper discusses the results of this on-orbit evaluation including performance data and crew comments.

During the STS-69 Space Shuttle flight scheduled for July, 1995, the Manipulator Position Display (MPD) and the Joint Angle Display (JAD) will be used for the first time on-orbit. The display software runs on a laptop computer, and the displays will be viewed on the laptop's monitor by the astronauts during maneuvers with the Space Shuttle's robot arm, the Remote Manipulator System (RMS). The display software will use real-time RMS data from the space shuttle computers to drive the display algorithms. By providing control cues, the displays will assist astronauts and also be evaluated during the RMS tasks performed on the flight. This paper will discuss the displays, the objectives of the flight evaluation, and preliminary ground based data. Ground based results have indicated that the displays will provide savings in on-orbit operations time and in ground based training.

To control current and future space telerobotics systems, the operator can be faced with several difficult control scenarios regarding the human-machine interface. These include operating the arm with limited positioning cues, avoiding joint limits or singularities, and operating the arm a single joint at a time rather than with the hand controllers which can be required due to system failures. The two operational modes of the Multi-mode Manipulator Display System address these problems. The first mode, Manipulator Position Display (MPD) mode provides the operator with positioning cues that are particularly helpful during operations with constrained viewing conditions. Experimental results have shown that performance times were much faster when using the MPD for constrained viewing tasks when compared to performance without the MPD.