Open source driving controller concept for humanoid robots: Teams hector and ViGIR at 2015 DARPA robotics challenge finals

Among the eight tasks of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), the driving task was one of the most challenging. Obstacles in the course prevented straight driving and restricted communications limited the situation awareness of the operator. In this video we show how Team Hector and Team ViGIR successfully completed the driving task with different robot platforms, THOR-Mang and Atlas respectively, but using the same software and compliant steering adapter. Our driving user interface presents to the operator image view from cameras and driving aids such as wheel positioning and turn radius path of the wheels. The operator uses a standard computer game joystick which is used to command steering wheel angles and gas pedal pressure. Steering wheel angle positions are generated off-line and interpolated on-line in the robot´s onboard computer. The compliant steering adapter accommodates end-effector positioning errors. Gas pedal pressure is generated by a binary joint position of the robot´s leg. Commands are generated in the operator control station and sent as target positions to the robot. The driving user interface also provides feedback from the current steering wheel position. Video footage with descriptions from the driving interface, robot´s camera and LIDAR perception and external task monitoring is presented.