This page gives some extra details on the content of the paper as well on the
demonstration.
Abstract Paper
This paper discusses the theoretical background and practical
implementation of a large-scale, low-performance haptic remote control
setup. The experimental system consists of a pair of KUKA Light Weight
Robots (LWR) coupled to a Willow Garage Personal Robot (PR2) via two
different robotic frameworks. The haptic ``performance'' is, of course, not
comparable to dedicated haptic applications, but has its use as a test-bed
for interaction between ``legacy'' service robot systems, that have not
been especially designed for mutual haptic interaction. We discuss some
major application problems, and the future work needed for non-uniform
robot coupling.
Beside haptic coupling, we provide the human operator with visual feedback.
To this end, the head movements of the human operator are coupled to the
head movement of the PR2 and the images of the eye cameras are displayed
to the human operator using a wearable display.
The presented teleoperation application is furthermore an example of
the integration of two component-based robotic frameworks namely OROCOS
(Open Robot Control Software)and ROS (Robot Operating System)
Experimental results regarding the haptic coupling are presented using
an ``artistic'' painting task for qualitative results, and a
hard contact at the slave side for quantitative results.
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Pictures Paper
| Image | Description |
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 | Setup showing the operator |
 | Setup showing the PR2 |
 | JR3 mounted on LWR |
 | Force verification setup |
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Videos Paper
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Paper Downloads
Paper PDF
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Introduction Demonstration
Haptic feedback and augmented reality are two research fields that
were and are highly popular for the past years.
A lot of the related work concerning haptic coupling of two robots happens
in the medical field where the focus lies on minimal invasive surgery.
Significantly less work was found on the needed visual augmented
feedback that must be given to operators for haptic control of a robot,
especially in the context of using ``off-the-shelf'' service robots as
components.
In the demonstration people can manipulate the PR2 arms and observe the youBot reaction or vice versa.
They will be able to feel the haptic coupling between both robots and be demonstrated how the coupling is done.
The presented teleoperation application is furthermore an example of the integration of two component-based
robotic frameworks namely OROCOS (Open Robot Control Software) and ROS (Robot Operating System).
We start from the existing software implementation using two KUKA lightweight arms and adapt it so as to use one KUKA youBot.
The software modifications will be limited to replacing the low level robot components, thereby showing the generality of the approach.
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Technology Demonstration
The aim is not to illustrate the best performant haptic coupling setup, but rather illustrating modern tools
combining mechanically very different platforms.
The demonstration illustrates the flexibility two major component based frameworks, namely OROCOS and ROS, offer.
These frameworks allow fast implementation and easy interchangable functionality. This is shown in the fact
that functionality can remain whilest platforms change. As the OROCOS framework is completely integrated in the ROS framework,
one can benefit of the advantages of both, without worrying about the connection between them. Furthermore,
it also shows the ease of distributed computing as algorithms for this demo run distributed over 5 different computers, still
maintaining a loop-closure time small enough for force feedback.
It illustrates the Best-Practice-in-Robotics (BRICS) drivers for the KUKA youBot, the Simple-Open-Ethercat-Master on the youBot connected
to OROCOS and stereo drivers for the Vuzix iWear VR920. Head tracking is done with a Xsens MTI IMU sensor.
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Pictures Demonstration
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Videos Demonstration
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Demonstration Downloads
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Acknowledgments
All authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by K.U.Leuven's
Concerted Research Action and GOA/2010/011 Global
real-time optimal control of autonomous robots and mechatronic systems, the Research Council K.U.Leuven, CoE
EF/05/006 Optimization in Engineering (OPTEC), and
the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant
agreement no. FP7-ICT-231940-BRICS (Best Practice in Robotics).
Wilm Decre's research is funded by a Ph.D. grant of the Institute for the Promotion
of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT- Vlaanderen).
Tinne De Laet is a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research--Flanders (F.W.O.) in Belgium.
The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support by Willow
Garage, in the context of the PR2 Beta program, as well as
the following people for helping to build this demo:
Enrico Di Lello, Markus Klotzbucher, Nick Vanthienen, Enea Scioni, Hans Wambacq and Bert Willaert.
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