A generic controller for teleoperation on robotic manipulators using low-cost devices

Abstract

A usual form of human-robot interaction is the ability of the former to remotely command the latter through any sort of auxiliary device; this interaction is referred to with the term “teleoperation”. Robots are common examples of systems that can be controlled remotely. Depending on the task at hand, said systems can grow in complexity and costs. Specifically, the peripherals devoted to controlling the robot could require costly engineering and even an ad hoc design. However, a range of low-cost, commercial devices and controllers, originally intended for other purposes, can also be a good fit for teleoperation tasks in robotics. This work explores a selected collection of popular devices of this kind, and proposes a unified framework to exploit their capabilities as remote controllers for a set of robotic platforms. Their suitability is proven both on real and simulated versions of these platforms through simple experiments that show how they could be further used in more complex scenarios.