Direct Teleoperation for Assistive Robots in Daily Lives

Abstract

In this paper, a new human-robot interface has been proposed for teleoperating assistive robots. As assistive robots are expected to compensate lost functions of disabled persons, the teleoperation should be easy for the users; moreover, it is desired to be training free. However, the teleoperation of robots with conventional joy sticks is difficult in general because the kinematic structures of the joy stick and the slave robot are different each other. Furthermore, considerable amount of training is required for the smooth operation. This problem will be solved using our proposed subsystems, which are called as direct-master-arm and 3-dimentional mouse. The interface consists of a position and orientation sensor system and a 3-dimentional mouse in which a vibrator and a tactile sensor are installed. While the arm of operator works as a master arm for teleoperating the robot, the vibrator contacting with human fingertip presents the reflected force from the robot to the operator. These subsystems make it possible for the user to operate the slave robot for daily tasks without having difficulty. This paper describes the structure and feature of the proposed system, and verifies the usefulness through the experiments.