Advanced tele-operated robot interface for teaching by demonstration

Abstract

This paper presents the development of the advanced robotic interface integrated by electromyography (EMG) device, AR-10 Robotic hand, and Baxter robot. Being very effective to detect muscle activities and import EMG signal, the EMG device can be conveniently programmed to convey the hand gestures of operator and pair with the AR-10 Robotic hand gestures. For instance, the operator can remotely impart movement to the AR-10 Robotic hand to grasp an object by contracting their arm muscle after properly programming the desired hand configurations for AR-10. Apart from the AR-10 robotic hand, the dual-arm (tutor and tutee's arm) robot Baxter robot has greatly enhanced the potential of AR-10 by physically connecting AR-10 with its tutee's arm, since Baxter robot grants it the ability to grasp an object in a much larger working space. In order to experiment the integrated interface, the teaching by demonstration (TbD) techniques has been presented using this integrated interface to perform two tasks: i) The human-robot skill transfer for the tutee's arm and the AR-10 ii) The implementation of the trajectory of the prehension and delivery to a target location. In the experiment, the tutor's arm which is coupled with the operator will implement a trajectory for the tutee's arm, the operator's hand trajectory would be exactly mirrored and implemented into it in a guide through manner. The experiment successfully accomplished the two objectives with the AR-10 delivering the object to the identical location, establishing a reliable and efficient robotic interface.