Development of a Teleoperation System by means of a Hybrid Simulator and a Wearable Device for Manipulation

-Development of a Master-Slave Teleoperation System for Disaster Response Robots-

Abstract

Most of the UGV-type (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) disaster response robots are equipped with a manipulator (also called robotic arm), which is conventionally operated by a gamepad-type controller. This kind of controller can be difficult to use if each button operates a single link of the robotic arm．As a solution to this difficulty，a more intuitive operation method is proposed. In this study, a teleoperation system is being developed by establishing a master-slave system’s communication using ROS (Robot Operating System) between a wearable device that attaches to the operator’s arm (master) and a hybrid simulator called Choreonoid that emulates the behavior of a 6 DOF robot manipulator (slave). An experimental investigation is carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method against the conventional gamepad.