VR-based teleoperation for robot compliance control

Robots governed by remote human operators are excellent candidates for work in hazardous or uncertain environments such as nuclear plants or outer space. For successful teleoperation, it is important to let the operator feel physically present at the remote site. When the telerobotic system is used to execute compliance tasks in which simultaneous control of both position and force may be demanded and inevitable contact with environments is encountered, information about the interactions between the robot manipulator and the environment are especially crucial for the operator to make proper decisions. This paper proposes a VR-based telerobotic system for such compliance tasks. The proposed system provides both visual and haptic information. A local intelligence controller, capable of surface tracking and force regulation, is equipped on the robot manipulator to tackle the time-delay problem usually present in teleoperation and to share control load with the operator. The proposed telerobotic system is developed in a virtual environment due to recent gains in the capabilities and popularity of virtual reality to generate realistic telepresence. Experiments based on the surface-tracking and peg-in-hole compliance tasks demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system.