Virtual and Augmented Reality with Head-Tracking for Efficient Teleoperation of Groups of Robots

Abstract

This paper deals with the usage of Virtual and Augmented Reality techniques in the field of teleoperation. The global context is a project for collaborative teleoperation of real robots groups. The aim is to enable to a group of teleoprators to control in a collaborative way groups of robots to achieve complex tasks like inspecting an area or to explore unknown parts of an unknown environment. More precisely, we first present the usage of Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE) system for the representation of the robot's world. This CVE and its interactions capabilities offer an abstraction of the environment and robots for teleoperators. We also present an application of this system throughout the original usage of a head-tracking system combined with a VR helmet. This application enables to control an active vision system on a remote mobile robot. Augmented Reality add-ons are included to ease the control process.