Enhancing bilateral teleoperation using camera-based online virtual fixtures generation

In this paper we present an interactive system to enhance bilateral teleoperation through online virtual fixtures generation and task switching. This is achieved using a stereo camera system which provides accurate information of the surrounding environment of the robot and of the tasks that have to be performed in it. The use of the proposed approach aims at improving the performances of bilateral teleoperation systems by reducing the human operator workload and increasing both the implementation and the execution efficiency. In fact, using our method virtual guidances do not need to be programmed a priori but they can be instead automatically generated and updated making the system suitable for unstructured environments. We strengthen the proposed method using passivity control in order to safely switch between different tasks while teleoperating under active constraints. A series of experiments emulating real industrial scenarios are used to show that the switch between multiple tasks can be passively and safely achieved and handled by the system.