Design and implementation of a new teleoperation control mode for differential drive UGVs

Abstract

In this paper, we propose and implement a new control mode for teleoperated unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), that exploits the similarities between computer games and teleoperation robotics. Today, all teleoperated differential drive UGVs use a control mode called Tank Control, in which the UGV chassis and the pan tilt camera are controlled separately. This control mode was also the dominating choice when the computer game genre First Person Shooter (FPS) first appeared. However, the hugely successful FPS genre, including titles such as Doom, Half Life and Call of Duty, now uses a much more intuitive control mode, Free Look Control (FLC), in which rotation and translation of the character are decoupled, and controlled separately. The main contribution of this paper is that we replace Tank Control with FLC in a real UGV. Using feedback linearization, the orientation of the UGV chassis is abstracted away, and the orientation and translation of the camera are decoupled, enabling the operator to use FLC when controlling the UGV. This decoupling is then experimentally verified. The developments in the gaming community indicates that FLC is more intuitive than Tank Control and reduces the well known situational awareness problem. It furthermore reduces the need for operator training, since literary millions of future operators have already spent hundreds of hours using the interface.