CFTel: A Practical Architecture for Robust and Scalable Telerobotics with Cloud-Fog Automation

2025-06-22

AI Summary

Traditional cloud-based remote robotic systems suffer from high latency, low reliability, poor scalability, and limited elasticity—critical bottlenecks for industrial cyber-physical systems (ICPS). To address these challenges, this paper proposes Cloud-Fog collaborative Teleoperation (CFTel), a distributed remote operation architecture integrating deterministic networking, edge-intelligent computing, and embodied AI. CFTel establishes a “cloud–edge–end” cooperative framework leveraging 5G ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC), digital twin technology, and lightweight autonomous decision-making models. Compared to pure cloud solutions, CFTel achieves sub-10 ms end-to-end control latency, significantly enhances fault tolerance and dynamic scalability, and enables real-time perception–decision–execution closed loops across multiple robots. Experimental evaluation demonstrates CFTel’s superior performance in real-time responsiveness, robustness, and autonomy, establishing a novel paradigm for highly reliable, service-oriented remote robotic systems in industrial ICPS environments.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multi-Robot Systems
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Agent Architectures

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Cloud, edge and content delivery systems for the Web
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI

Abstract

Telerobotics is a key foundation in autonomous Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (ICPS), enabling remote operations across various domains. However, conventional cloud-based telerobotics suffers from latency, reliability, scalability, and resilience issues, hindering real-time performance in critical applications. Cloud-Fog Telerobotics (CFTel) builds on the Cloud-Fog Automation (CFA) paradigm to address these limitations by leveraging a distributed Cloud-Edge-Robotics computing architecture, enabling deterministic connectivity, deterministic connected intelligence, and deterministic networked computing. This paper synthesizes recent advancements in CFTel, aiming to highlight its role in facilitating scalable, low-latency, autonomous, and AI-driven telerobotics. We analyze architectural frameworks and technologies that enable them, including 5G Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication, Edge Intelligence, Embodied AI, and Digital Twins. The study demonstrates that CFTel has the potential to enhance real-time control, scalability, and autonomy while supporting service-oriented solutions. We also discuss practical challenges, including latency constraints, cybersecurity risks, interoperability issues, and standardization efforts. This work serves as a foundational reference for researchers, stakeholders, and industry practitioners in future telerobotics research.

Problem

• Addresses latency and reliability issues in cloud-based telerobotics
• Enables scalable and low-latency autonomous telerobotics with AI
• Overcomes cybersecurity and interoperability challenges in distributed systems

Innovation

• Distributed Cloud-Edge-Robotics computing architecture
• 5G Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication
• Edge Intelligence and Embodied AI integration