Mobile Robot Teleoperation through Virtual Robot

In robot teleoperation a robot works as a physical agent at a remote site for a robot operator. There are mainly two tasks such as environment recognition using visual information and robot control according to the recognition in robot teleoperation using camera images. In this paper we propose a teleoperation method for a mobile robot through a virtual robot. In the proposed method we manage above two tasks in the same manner which are usually treated separately. This method is an intuitive robot teleoperation method where an operator do not need to concern about robot body orientations and can absorb difference of robot driving mechanisms. That is this method frees an operator from being bothered from controlling a robot and the operator can concentrate on where he/she intends to go. This method mainly consists of two technologies: an omni-directional image stabilization technology and automatic robot orientation control. The conducted experiments show effectiveness of the proposed method.