A point-and-click interface for the real world

Abstract

We present a novel interface for human-robot interaction that enables a human to intuitively and unambiguously select a 3D location in the world and communicate it to a mobile robot. The human points at a location of interest and illuminates it (``clicks it'') with an unaltered, off-the-shelf, green laser pointer. The robot detects the resulting laser spot with an omnidirectional, catadioptric camera with a narrow-band green filter. After detection, the robot moves its stereo pan/tilt camera to look at this location and estimates the location's 3D position with respect to the robot's frame of reference.