The Design and Development of a Virtual Reality Environment for the Operator of a Teleoperated Robot in a Test Setup

In this day and age, we are physically getting further and further apart. At the same time, we want to remain as close to what we desire as possible. The solution for this is the PACOF project. In the PACOF project, a construction is being designed for the teleoperation of a robotic avatar, the idea of controlling that robotic avatar from a remote location. There is a (wireless) connection between the operator and the robotic avatar. A big challenge in this project is that this connection generates time delays. While classical methods succeed in providing a solution for small-time delays, big-time delays are a challenge. Model mediated teleoperation addresses this by letting the operator
interact with a model of the environment, which is updated by measurements of the robot. For the integration experiment of the PACOF project, a mock-up pipeline is needed for the visual information. This mock-up pipeline will be made in virtual reality (VR). The biggest benefit of using VR is that it provides the operator with both a sense of embodiment, the feeling that they are (an extension of) the robot, and telepresence, the feeling that they are in a remote location. This sense of embodiment and telepresence provides greater control over the robot because, after all, it is easier to move your own body right where you are than it is to move someone else’s body.

The goal of this bachelor assignment is to create an environment in virtual reality for the controller of the teleoperated robot. This virtual environment will be a digitalized copy of the test setup. The test setup will contain movable objects whose location is sent to the headset to properly synchronize the virtual environment with the real-world situation. This virtual environment will be designed with the sense of embodiment and telepresence of the operator in mind. Therefore, considerations will need to be made to optimize these senses, such as reducing overall latency and providing a virtual body with high correspondence in spatial configuration.