Development of a Multimodal Interface for Teleoperating a Humanoid Robot for Remote Service Tasks

Kurzfassung

This thesis concerns the redesign of a multimodal interface for teleoperating a humanoid robot. An existing design which has been developed at the German Aerospace Center DLR over the last years is analyzed and possible points of improvement are identified. Focus is set to safety, ergonomy and usability of the system. Based upon theoretical basics and the analysis of requirements derived from the existing system, three priority points for the further developed device are identified. These prioritized design aspects are (1) an interface for immersively controlling the rotation of a remote torso with force feedback, (2) the integration of a head mounted display for visual feedback and a tracking system for the head of the human operator and (3) the development of concepts for multi purpose foot interfaces. For these important points several concepts are analyzed using a cost-benefit analysis. The best solutions in each field are analyzed for mutual exclusions and an overall concept for the human machine interface is derived. To test the functionality of the derived winning concept for the torso rotation interface, a prototype is designed and put into service. Besides the mechanical design of parts and the selection of suitable actuators and sensors, this tasks includes the development of a control model using rapid control prototyping based upon Matlab/Simulink. The bilateral teleoperation is tested successfully and evaluated using a remote DLR Space Justin humanoid robot as a slave. The further winning concepts for head and foot interfaces are taken to a state from which the production of prototypes can be done straightforward without high further development effort. A Microsoft KINECT sensor and a simple USB-camera based foot interface are evaluated as possible cost effective input devices. A further important aspect of the thesis is an optimization of the common workspace of the human operator and two DLR light weight robots used as haptic interfaces for the arms and hands. Based upon preliminary work, possible improvements caused by changing the robot positions and link lengths are analyzed aiming at avoidance of singularities and limits of the robot joint angles. The result of this subtask is a set of recommendations for improving the usability of the system.