Bilateral force feedback control using multi-degree-of-freedom mobile robot

Remote controlled mobile robots are useful in ultimate environment, such as outer space, disaster site, atomic furnace and so on. There are many researches about mobile robots using audio-visual information, but researches using force sensation is not very studied. The mobile-hapto, which is the remote control system with force information, has been proposed, but the robot used in the system has only two wheels and a caster. So, the robot cannot acquire much information and run over rough road. In this research, first, the multi-degree-of-freedom mobile robot, which is a three-wheeled robot, has been developed. It has a rotary motor in each wheel and a linear motor between body and each wheel. It can acquire horizontal and vertical information. Second, remote control with force feedback of the multi-degree-of-freedom mobile robot using joystick-form control system was realized. The validity of this system is confirmed by an experiment.