Optimizing human‐robot teleoperation interfaces for mobile manipulators

Purpose – Mobile manipulators offer great capability, but their teleoperation is often an overwhelming task for humans due to the many degrees‐of‐freedom of control available from both the mobile platform and the associated manipulator. The purpose of this paper is to address the question of how these controls should be mapped to the robotic mobile platform and its manipulator for “optimal teleoperation”, for the special case of an omnidirectional mobile platform and two joint (with wrist) planar manipulator. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors summarize the results of a study to optimize the teleoperation interface for a two‐link planar manipulator with a wrist that was mounted on an omni‐directional mobile platform. Findings – The research comprised a carefully‐controlled study using 33 human subjects in seven different treatments of possible control interfaces. Research limitations/implications – Users performed movement and manipulation tasks, and their performance was measured on several scales. Practical implications – Based on this study, the authors present guidelines for optimizing mobile manipulator control interfaces and motivate future research using the method of controlled multi‐user trials. Social implications – This research has the potential to guide the improvement of interfaces for mobile robots in military, service, and security applications. Originality/value – The value of this research extends to optimizing remote control schemes to relieve operator fatigue and optimize interface design.