Robust visualization of navigation experiments with mobile robots over the Internet

Visualization is an important precondition for successful tele-operation of instructable mobile robots. Data connections with varying and limited bandwidth such as the Internet, however, prohibit the continuous transmission of video signals. In this paper we propose a predictive simulation technique which is designed to permit the reliable visualization of the robot’s actions over the Internet. It differs from previous approaches in that it includes an odometry and sensor simulation. This simulation of the robot allows the integration of a complete robot control system to reliably predict complex actions of the robot even if large transmission gaps of several seconds occur. We describe an application of the predictive simulation technique to navigation experiments with mobile robots. We present different experiments carried out with a real robot illustrating that the predictive simulation technique provides accurate visualizations of the robot’s actions even if transmission gaps of more than ten seconds occur.