Beyond the Web: Robotic Tele-Excavation (RTE)

A Collaborative WWW Project at the University of Southern California.

In May of 1994 the Departments of Anthropology and Computer Science began a collaborative project to develop a WWW server which would allow users to "leave the Web" and interact with the physical (i.e., non-virtual) world.


RTE is a system which allows users to remotely tele-operate a robot arm over the WWW. The system consists of a commercial robot arm positioned over a terrain of fine-grain sediments. Users can view the environment via live images from a CCD camera attached to the arm. A pneumatic system is also mounted on the arm, allowing users to direct short bursts of compressed air onto the environment at selected points. Thus users can excavate regions within the terrain by positioning the arm, delivering a burst of air, and viewing the newly cleared region. A variety of artifiacts are buried in the sediment, and users are asked to explore the terrain and comment on their discoveries in an ongoing log.

Proceed to RTE Site
FURTHER INFORMATION on the Project.

NOTE: Robot operation requires a greyscale or color monitor and a WWW client that supports forms. NCSA provides updated Mosaic sources for X, PC, and Mac platforms.