Artificial force reflection control for teleoperated mobile robots

Abstract

This paper presents a new idea of force feedback in the teleoperated mobile robot control: artificial force reflection. It is well known that force feedback from slave to master can increase the sense of telepresence so that task performance can be improved in teleoperation. There has been a great deal of activity in developing force reflection algorithms, especially in the application of tele-manipulator. However, such force feedback control algorithms have rarely appeared in teleoperated mobile robots because the contact force between an environment and a mobile robot is not available. In this paper, feedback force for the teleoperated mobile robot is artificially generated by using range data from an environment. To reflect force to a joystick, we devise a new structure of a joystick with two motors. During an operation, the computed artificial force feeds into motors on the joystick directly so that an operator can guide the robot, feeling real force which becomes larger as mobile robot moves closer to obstacles. Our method helps the operator to guide the robot more safely, even without any visual contact. To verify the validity of our algorithm, we develop the simulator which consists of the joystick and the visual display system. Through some experiments using this system, we confirm the validity and the effectiveness of our new idea of artificial force reflection in the teleoperated mobile robot. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.