Meet Taurus, the VR Controlled Bomb Disposal Robot

[Narrator] This is no game, it's virtual reality that

mimics a very scary reality, bomb disposal.

And this is Taurus SRI's teleoperated robot,

which ventures where human beings dare not.

It used to be that Taurus' operators had to watch

3-D monitors in order to steer it around.

But now SRI is taking the robot to the next level.

That's right, VR operated robots could soon pick apart

suspicious devices so humans don't have to.

(computer sounds)

The advantages of VR, is that it really allows you

to create an entirely immersive experience.

So, you're taking the operator and really putting him or her

into any world that you want to create.

As I look around, in the VR world I'm seeing a virtual

operations center.

And what the input is, is that we're using

the Oculus Touches and once I step on the pedals below,

I clutch into the system and that allows me to actually

control the robotic arms in real time.

So, it's tracking my hand motion and conveying those motions

to the robot and then from that I'm also able to control

the grippers, roll and manipulate.

The sensation is very natural.

So, you see all of my hand motions are communicated

one to one and in real time.

We also do motion scaling, so if I need to be much more

precise, I can actually zoom the camera in

and then my hand motions are scaled,

so now a very large hand motion on my end,

is scaled to a much more controlled and small motion

on the robotic end.

[Narrator] But all that accuracy is for not

if there's a delay between your input

and the robot's movements.

Which would be completely unacceptable

if you're trying to explore a suspicious package.

In trying to do teleop, that's one of the

primary challenges, is making sure that the control

is really real time and one to one.

Fortunately there's a lot of development in that space

as well, so we're leveraging a lot from the

gaming industries and other areas.

We also do input devices that are haptic enabled,

so we can actually communicate the forces

that Taurus imparts, back to the operator as well.

So, if you need to actually feel either the static forces

that it's pushing on, on a wall or the world, we can do that

or vibrotactile which kind of gives you a sensation

of higher frequencies as well.

[Narrator] So no longer is Taurus just an extension

of human being, it's getting smarter and smarter

and every better at putting grateful humans out of a job.