Remote control of a real robot taking into account transmission delays

International audienceIn this paper we propose solutions to remote control a robot through the Internet, taking into account the transmission delays. The objective is to deal with the existing delays, not to try to reduce them. The literature shows that, with a delay superior to 300 ms, the remote operator has difficulties controlling the system. The idea is to work on the video feedback from the robot to the operator to mask the delay. This means modifying the video feedback by zooming in and out on the received image and translating it. The idea is to make the user think that her/his command is normally executed. Experimental results are obtained using a real robot and show that these aids allow the user to constantly control the robot, without the need to stop and wait for a more recent image, which results in less time needed to accomplish the task. Improvements of our two propositions are suggested at the end of the paper