Tele-operation system for rescue robot by inputting target position of end-effector

Recently, tele-operated robots are expected to search and rescue victims in a disaster area. However, there is a problem that the operation of rescue robots is too complex. One of this reasons is that an operator has to operate the mobile platform and the manipulator of a rescue robot simultaneously when the operator finds victims. In this study, a control method to coordinate locomotion and manipulation is proposed in order to simplify the tele-operation of a robot. In our system, once the operator only inputs the target position of the end-effector of the manipulator on an image from the camera mounted on the robot, the robot automatically moves to achieve the target position. The manipulator avoids the degradation of manipulability while following the target trajectory of the end-effector by using redundancy of the manipulator. The vehicle avoids “No Entry Areas” while following the target trajectory of the end-effector by our modified artificial potential method. We verify the effectiveness of our proposed system by simulations and experiments.