Motion-Based Control Interface for Intuitive and Efficient Teleoperation of Construction Robots

Abstract

Robotic teleoperation is regarded as a promising method of assisting workers in performing construction activities while avoiding potentially dangerous conditions. However, the control interface of conventional teleoperation systems relies on physical devices, such as a keyboard and joystick, to input control commands, which cannot be intuitively mapped to robot movement, and thus affecting the teleoperation performance of non-expert users. In this research, we present a novel human-robot interface to map human arm movement to robotic arm motion for intuitive teleoperation. Firstly, the human arm is tracked in real-time through a motion capturing system, that is, OptiTrack. The 3D location data is then streamed to robot operating system (ROS) and is used for motion planning of the robotic arm in MoveIt. Finally, the interface is demonstrated in a teleoperated pick-and-place task through robotic simulation, and the usability of the developed framework is compared to that of a joystick-based teleoperation system.