Abstract
Marionette system provides an intuitive teleoperation system for the difficulty controlling whole-body motion of a multi-joint robot and the complicated observation of its condition. This system employs a small robot which has similar form to a control target as an operating/displaying device, so that the device provides an operational feeling like manipulating a doll, so it is named Marionette Device. Since the characteristics of the Marionette device and the target robot are synchronized bilaterally in the system, the operation of Marionette device is reflected intuitively in the target, and the robot motion is also displayed simultaneously by the Marionette device. In this paper, we develop a humanoid type device as Marionette device in order to operate a humanoid robot HRP-2 and implement a whole-body teleoperation method. The remote walking and manipulation experiments in an unknown environment are introduced. In this experiment, the operator should guess the remote environment using a head camera view and control legs and arms by the Marionette device. We propose a new operation method for controlling foot position and leg joints with the Marionette device. It makes possible to walk by pointing a foot stamp step by step in a stable place. To show the effectiveness of the proposed system, we compare another teleoperating system which employs a joystick and a 3DCG display for control and understanding the state of remote robot. The experimental result shows effectiveness of the Marionette system and it has potential of teleoperating humanoid robots with other devices for complementing each other.
