EXPLORING THE APPLICATION OF VIRTUAL REALITY TO REMOTE ROBOT OPERATIONS

International audienceThis paper presents two components of a prototype system exploring the application of virtual reality (VR) andtelepresence to remote robotic cleanup of hazardous materials. The goal is to provide an interface between thehuman operator and the robots and sensors used for handling such materials that is both easy to learn andintuitive and natural to use. Sandia National Laboratories has developed a model-based control system whichuses graphical models of a remote environment to allow the operator to both control the robots and to monitorthe operations as they occur. The work presented here looks at extending that paradigm to allow the operator tobuild the required graphical models interactively and to control the system via a multi-sensory, immersive VRinterface