A surveillance 3D hand-tracking-based Tele-operated UGV

Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) are becoming of wider interest in surveillance and defense applications. UGVs could be either autonomous or Tele-operated. Autonomous unmanned systems require a path guidance computer-based system. For Tele-operated unmanned systems, different methods are used to operate such systems. One way is to use wired or wireless remote control (RC) boards or joysticks. Wireless RC systems enable the control of unmanned systems thousands of miles away. Conventional joystick and button-based RC systems are usually convenient when it comes to operating an unmanned system with simple or limited functionalities. It also does not require a lot of computational power to interpret the operator´s commands. On the other hand, when the Tele-operated unmanned system includes many and complex functionalities, using conventional RC systems may not be the best choice. In this work we propose an unconventional 3D Hand-Tracking-Based Tele-Operating system to control a UGV carrying a 4-DOF robotic arm. Results show that the proposed system from the perspective of a number of operators was easier to control the UGV and the robotic arm when compared to joystick-based RC systems.