Control Strategies and Feedback Information in Mobile Robot Teleoperation

In this paper several control strategies and feedback information for teleoperation of a mobile robot are described and analyzed. Main objective is to verify the role of different types of feedback information and command strategies. Three control strategies which combined position-speed and position-position control modes are analyzed. Position-speed and positionposition command strategies are used for mobile robot teleoperation. In position-speed strategy, desired speed of a mobile robot is defined by a master manipulators position. In position-position command strategy, robots position is controlled by position of master device. Hybrid command strategy, combining position-speed and position-position strategy, is introduced. Three types of feedback are provided to human-operator. Described human-robot teleoperation interfaces were tested by performing experiments. First, unilateral teleoperation was studied. Experiments with position-speed, position-position and hybrid command strategies were evaluated. Second, bilateral teleoperation of a mobile robot was studied using two types of force feedback: force feedback related to obstacle range information, and force feedback including information about the state of the robot. For experiments with bilateral teleoperation different command strategies were applied. The role of visual and sound feedback was verified also. Navigation time and positioning accuracy were measured during experiments. For each type of human-robot interaction interface advantages and disadvantages, and possible applications were described.