Task-oriented teleoperation systems for groups of mobile robots with time-varying communication delays

This paper presents system framework and control algorithm for a human operator to remotely teleoperate a group of mobile robots over a network with time-varying delays. By utilizing the task-space technique adopted from control of redundant robotic manipulator, a human operator is able to command the task abstraction of a multi-robot system under the proposed architecture. Given the control gains, which are contingent on the upper bound of the round-trip delays, stability and tracking performance in the task space can be guaranteed. Moreover, the sub-task control in the null space of the multi-robot system can be utilized for mobile robots to achieve additional missions other than tracking the task functions. Experiments on a robotic manipulator and a group of differential-driven mobile robots are introduced to validate the proposed bilateral teleoperation system.