Teleoperation of mobile robots via Internet: Guidelines of design

EMANUEL SLAWIÑSKI; VICENTE MUT

Robot Vision: Strategies, Algorithms and Motion Planning

Nova Science Publishers

Lugar: Hauppauge NY; Año: 2009; p. 445 - 460

This chapter proposes some guidelines to design control schemes applied to teleoperation systems of mobile robots. Perhaps, Internet represents the most attractive communication channel since its use increases year after year due to its low cost. The possibility of a human operator executing a physical work at distance represents a powerful and useful tool applied to several areas, such as tele-service, telemedicine, exploration, entertainment, tele-manufacturing, among others. But, the time-varying delay included by Internet may induce instability or poor performance of a teleoperation system, since the person perceives the interaction between robot and remote environment some time later than the real one and the commands sent by him/her to the robot are received some time later, too. Therefore, the design of a control scheme must take into account several points, such as: autonomy level in the remote site; user interface; force feedback; communication system; information feedback to the human operator; human operator’s behavior; compensation of the time delay; performance of the control scheme; stability-transparency; and link between autonomy of the mobile robot and human operator’s decisions. From the analysis of these points, the authors suggest a guide based on theoretical and practical aspects looking for guiding the designer to obtain stable control schemes for teleoperation of mobile robots.