i-Botics is an Innovation Hub for Research, Development and Implementation for Interaction Robotics. It is initiated by TNO and University of Twente. One of the research lines within i-Botics is telepresence (remote “being”) and tele manipulation (remote “operation”, “handling”).
i-Botics is participating in the ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition. The goal of this competition is to create a tele robotics system that enables you to feel like you are in a different location, can interact with people as if you are in the other location and bring your skills to this different location.
One of the challenges in the XPRIZE project is the control of the movement of the remote robot, the avatar. The control interface has to work with both a ‘differential drive’ and an ‘omnidirectional’ platform. The control of the movement will be done without using hands as these are accepted with the control of the manipulator.
The main objective is to get to know what the best way is to control the motion of a robotic platform without using hands.