Natural user interface for Roombots

Abstract

Abstract-Roombots (RB) are self-reconfigurable modular robots designed to study robotic reconfiguration on a structured grid and adaptive locomotion off grid. One of the main goals of this platform is to create adaptive furniture inside living spaces such as homes or offices. To ease the control of RB modules in these environments, we propose a novel and more natural way of interaction with the RB modules on a RB grid, called the Natural Roombots User Interface. In our method, the user commands the RB modules using pointing gestures. The user's body is tracked using multiple Kinects. The user is also given real-time visual feedback of their physical actions and the state of the system via LED illumination electronics installed on both RB modules and the grid. We demonstrate how our interface can be used to efficiently control RB modules on simple point-to-point grid locomotion and conclude by discussing future extensions.

Roombots extended: Challenges in the next generation of self-reconfigurable modular robots and their application in adaptive and assistive furniture

“…We implemented LED rings around each of the outer DoFs, consisting of 6 RGBW LEDs each. A prototype of these rings is presented in [17] for a dedicated set of modules; an upgraded version has now become the standard for all modules. With it, different states of the module can be assigned to light colors, light intensities and various blinking patterns, which can be used for feedback to the operator.…”

“…intuitive hand gestures for certain commands. Such a user interface already has been explored in [17], however not in real-time.…”

“…The first generation of Roombots proposed the general hardware design of our SRMR [6,7,8] together with algorithmic work on reconfiguration [9,10,11], locomotion [12,13,14,15], and user interfaces [16,17]. As a proof-of-concept, only a limited number of modules was needed to demonstrate the three key functions connection, disconnection and movement.…”

“…speech recognition where modules react to spoken commands, or through gesture control as e.g. in [17,19,20] where commands are created through the tracking of gestures. Further, modules should provide feedback to the environment such that the current state of a single module or a group of modules can easily be understood.…”

“…LEDintegrated in one hemisphere which is used for illumination purposes in different colors and brightness. Finally, an LED-ring board gives feedback to a nearby user (a prototype of this board has been developed in[17]). Further, readout boards for other new sensors have been integrated in Roombots.…”