INTUITIVE “HUMAN ON THE LOOP” INTERFACE FOR TELE OPERATING REMOTE MOBILE MANIPULATOR ROBOTS​

Teleoperated robots offer safe means for working in environments that are life-threatening or otherwise inaccessible for humans. Due to the severe conditions in space, technologically advanced robots are frequently adopted for unmanned planetary exploration and carrying out maintenance tasks on manned missions. As the robots grow technically more complicated and capable, the control interfaces must, in turn, become simpler. We have developed TeMoto, a speech and hand gesture based supervisory teleoperation software for hardware agnostic mobile manipulation. TeMoto addresses several chronic technical issues associated with most teleoperation systems including the operator’s SA, communication delays, and interface intuitiveness. This paper presents the functional description of TeMoto’s resource management tool–Resource Registrar (RR)–by exemplifying it with a demonstration where a series of sensor failures are induced on a remote mobile manipulator robot. Despite the sensor failures, the software remains operational and a visual representation of the surroundings is sustained for the operator.