Interactive Teleoperation of a Mobile Manipulator Using a Shared-Control Approach

This paper presents a shared-control-based design for teleoperation of a dual-arm omnidirectional mobile robot-a robot that can execute tasks commanded by a remotely user, or that can operate autonomously by adapting to its immediate environment, or that can operate in both modes simultaneously. To achieve this capability for the robot and for its effective remote control, a shared-control method has been developed. The controller determines the control gains for both the human and the autonomous commands by computing the user's confidence factor. For ease of use, a smartphone/tablet is used to control the robot. Using this approach, the robot allows the user to manipulate its motion from a remote site and compensates for a lack of local human knowledge. Practical experiments validate the proposed design and demonstrate the potential of the proposed shared-control method for home-service tasks.