Transparency of a bilateral tele-operation scheme of a mobile manipulator robot

Abstract

This work presents the design of a bilateral tele-operation system for a mobile manipulator robot, allowing a human operator to perform complex tasks in remote environments. In the tele-operation system it is proposed that the human operator is immersed in an augmented reality environment to have greater transparency of the remote site. The transparency of a tele-operation system indicates a measure of how the human feels the remote system. In the local site an environment of augmented reality developed in Unity3D is implemented, which through input devices recreates the sensations that the human would feel if he were in the remote site, for which is considered the senses of sight, touch and hearing. These senses help the human operator to “transmit” their ability and experience to the robot to perform a task. Finally, experimental results are reported to verify the performance of the proposed system.