Human interface for maneuvering nonholonomic systems

Humans can easily maneuver some types of nonholonomic systems, e.g. wheeled vehicles, while other types, e.g. space robots, are difficult to handle intuitively. We propose a human interface to simplify the operation of "difficult" nonholonomic systems, which utilizes the human ability to maneuver "easy" systems. The difficult real system is converted into an easy virtual system using coordinate and input transformation. The input from the human operator to the virtual system is converted into input to the real system, while the state of the real system is converted into that of the virtual system which is displayed to the operator. The operator can then steer the real system feeling as if maneuvering the virtual system. Our experiments show that the operating performance is improved by this method.