Virtual reality testbed for mobile robots

This paper presents a distributed, multi-user virtual reality testbed for a mobile robot. The main components of the testbed include user interface, networking, simulation and robot control. The user interface is implemented as a combination of a virtual environment and a standard graphical user interface (GUI). The virtual environment is developed using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) and it corresponds to the laboratory environment where the robot is placed and tested. The standard GUI is implemented using Java Programming language. The World Wide Web (WWW) browser is used to integrate the virtual environment (embedded VRML) and the standard GUI (Java applet) in a single user interface. Users can access a dedicated WWW server and download the user interface. Networking component (communication among users and robots) is implemented using the Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) protocol. The existing robot development system has been utilized to provide simulation capabilities. A separate stand-alone Java application has been developed to communicate and control the robot using a wireless Ethernet link. In addition to user´s direct control, control algorithms (e.g. fuzzy logic based) can be used to replace the user. A Nomad200 mobile robot has been used for initial measurements and evaluations of the testbed.