High Utility Teleoperation Framework for Legged Manipulators Through Leveraging Whole-Body Control

Abstract

Legged manipulators are a prime candidate for reducing risk to human lives through completing tasks in hazardous environments. However, controlling these systems in real-world applications requires a highly functional teleoperation framework, capable of leveraging all utility of the robot to complete tasks. In this work, such a teleoperation framework is presented, where a wearable whole-body motion capture suit is integrated with a whole-body controller specialised for teleoperation and a set of teleoperation strategies that enable the control of all main frames of the robot along with additional functions. Within the whole-body controller, all tasks and constraints can be configured dynamically due to their modularity, hence enabling seamless transitions between each teleoperation strategy. As a result, this not only enables the realisation of trajectories outside the workspace without the whole-body controller but also the ability to complete tasks that would require an additional manipulator if just the gripper frames of the robot were controllable. To validate the presented framework, a set of real robot experiments have been completed to demonstrate all teleoperation strategies and analyse their proficiency.