A Modular Approach for Remote Operation of Humanoid Robots in Search and Rescue Scenarios

In this work we present a modular, robust and user-friendly Pilot Interface meant to control humanoid robots in rescue scenarios during dangerous missions. YARP is used to communicate to low-level hardware components and to interconnect control modules (receive the status and request actions). ROS is used to retrieve many sensors data and to display the robot status. The operator is immersed into a 3D reconstruction of the environment and can manipulate 3D virtual objects. The operator can control the robot at three different levels. The high-level control deals with human-like actions which involve the whole robot's actuation and perception. The mid-level control generates tasks in cartesian space w.r.t. a reference frame on the robot. Finally the low level control operates in joint space.