Teleoperation of robots plays a vital role in complex and unpredictable settings where human supervision is necessary or when the co-presence of a human operator poses unwanted risk. However, direct teleoperation of robots is a challenging task that can expose human operators to adverse levels of workload. This is particularly true when the robot is more complex than the device the operator is using as a control interface, e.g., if using a handheld controller to operate a robot arm with multiple joints. Shared control offers a way to reduce this burden on operators, as was discussed here.

Here I will briefly demonstrate an example from my prior work on how a virtual reality (VR) headset interface can be used to expose the inner workings of a shared control system [1]. This example also falls under the research thread on “explainable” human-robot collaborations using extended reality.

In the below video, a VR interface provides visual feedback to operators as they teleoperate a robot arm during a screwdriver task. The underlying shared control in this work regulated operator motion to either guide the teleoperated robot along a task-specific path or restrict it to remain within a “safe” region. A compass visualization is shown above the robot’s model in VR, with the centered arrow pointing in the direction of this task path and the color indicating safety from obstacles. Please refer to the paper or contact me if you are interested in more details.

References

[1] M. Zolotas, M. Wonsick, P. Long, and T. Padır, “Motion Polytopes in Virtual Reality for Shared Control in Remote Manipulation Applications”, Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2021.