TIREBOT: A novel tire workshop assistant robot

Abstract

In this paper a novel tire workshop assistant robot is presented. The robot can load heavy wheels and transport them in any place of the workshop, lifting the operator from the effort of doing it manually. The operator can interact with the robot through gestures, which are captured by a RGB-D camera and translated into commands, or teleoperate it through a control station equipped with a haptic interface, which can also return a force feedback. The robot can also operate autonomously with a mission manager that decides where the robot has to go in order to accomplish a certain task. The paper presents a description of the design process and motivations of every design choice.