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Web Posted on: August 4, 1998


Development of the Mobile Robot System to aid the daily life for physically handicapped
(Interface using internet browser)

Yoshiyuki Takahashi
Takashi Komeda
Tateki Uchida
Masao Miyagi
Hiroyuki Koyama
Hiroyasu Funakubo

SHIBAURA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Fukasaku 307, Omiya, 330-0003, Japan
tel: +81 48 687 5176
fax: +81 48 687 5197,
email: m797501@sic.shibaura-it.ac.jp


1. Summary

People who care for physically handicapped persons have great burdens in mind and body, the problem of care for them will become a social problem. We are trying to solve this problem by developing a small mobile robot system. The purpose of this system is to pick up and bring daily using objects putting them somewhere indoors semi-automatically. This mobile robot system consists of a manipulator, a mobile unit, a visual sensor, a control computer, an operator console and a wireless LAN modem. This system gives the information about the surrounding area to the operator through the visual sensor and the operator console. The operator can control the mobile robot on an internet browser, it can be controlled from any type of computer and any place. The operator console using internet browser is very simple and easy to operate the robot, the communication method using computer network makes it possible to extend the service area of mobile robot. 2.Introduction In general, it has great burdens in mind and body to help physically handicapped persons, we are trying to solve this problem by developing a small mobile robot system(Fig.1). The purpose of this system is to bring daily using objects putting them somewhere indoors semi-automatically. Of course, there are many kind of different works involved in helping physically handicapped persons, for example changing clothes, giving the medicine, cleaning the bed and etc.. With this system, however, we think that even if the machine achieves one part of these works instead of a human, burdens on the helper should decrease in mind and body.


Fig.1 Overview of Mobile Robot System

3.The aim of study We have already developed the mobile robot system, it could bring daily using objects putting them somewhere in the room semi-automatically, not full automatic. However, this system had following problems. The mobile robot can not operate outside the room, because low power radio wave can not transfer volumes of information and high power radio wave affect to precision electrical machines. Then, we have developed the interface system, based on following two conceptions.

(1)Telecommunication using a computer network
Recently, a computer network became easy to use. If we can use computer network to control the mobile robot system, the mobile robot can controlled by any place, and also can transfer volumes of informations by LAN.

(2)Graphical and Interactive communication
The operator must realize safe robot motion in human working space, However, the operator of this robot is physically handicapped, he is not always engineer and professional to robot. Therefore, it is necessary to use graphical and interactive interface to operate the robot. 4.System structure of mobile robot Fig.2 shows the system structure of mobile robot. This mobile robot system consists of a manipulator, a mobile unit, a visual sensor, a control computer, an operator console and a wireless LAN modem. This system gives the information about surrounding to the operator through the visual sensor and the operator console. When the operator directs an object on the operator console, system measure a 3-dimensional location of the target object. If the target object is beyond the working space of the manipulator, the mobile unit approaches it with visual tracking and the manipulator picks the objects up and bring back to the operator.


Fig.2 System Structure of Mobile Robot

The length of the manipulator is 1255[mm] and it has four degrees of freedom and a hand. The weight capacity is 3[kgf]. The mobile unit has 2 drive wheels and four casters. It can move straight forward, backward and pivot turn. The size of the mobile unit is width 600[mm], length 800[mm], height 550[mm] and it has the space to load the controllers and batteries. The visual sensor consists of a CCD camera and an image processor. The camera is attached on the wrist part of the manipulator. This design makes it possible to move the camera and manipulator simultaneously, the system gives surrounding information to the operator through the camera and the operator console. The control computer controls motion of the manipulator and mobile unit, communicates to the operator console as a Web server.

The operator console can control mobile robot using internet browser, WWW contents does not depend on type of computers, thus the operator can control the mobile robot on any type of computer. And also the operator console using internet browser can access to the mobile robot from anywhere. The operator console and mobile robot are connected by infrared wireless LAN. Because, some elderly operator need to support by medical machine for daily life, the communication using infrared does not affect precision medical machines and it can extend the service area of mobile robot.


Fig.3 Target Object

The target objects for this mobile robot system are things for daily using which have different size and shape, it is difficult to track such things using an image processing and measure its location in real-time. To solve this problem, we put things for daily using on a tray which has a cylindrical same size grip(Fig.3). This grip is the target object of the visual sensor. Therefore, we can easily measure the size of the target object on the image plane as the number of pixels of the CCD camera, and calculate the distance to the target object using simple formula.

Then, it can measure the 3-dimensional location using a single camera in real-time. 5.Interface system It was possible to bring daily using object putting them somewhere indoors using this mobile robot. However, this robot is used by the operator who is nonprofessional about robot. Therefore, it is necessary to have easy and interactive interface between human and robot. For example, it must have user friendly input method, to show the real status of the robot and etc. for nonprofessional operator. Especially, the motion environment for this robot is that the target object puts somewhere indoors, not fixed position, the operator must communicate to the robot through the operator console to look for the object, and also the robot must show the motion condition with easy understanding method. We developed the interface software to realize these communications.

Our user interface software is able to give these information to the operator and control the mobile robot with GUI(Fig.4). The user interface software is running on internet browser. It shows visual information through the visual sensor, mobile robot status and message for operator. The operator console using internet browser is very simple and easy to operate the robot, the operator only access to the mobile robot and direct the target object on visual information using the mouse. Afterward, the mobile robot requests to confirm about directed target object and the operator makes a cue by clicking command button on the operator console. The operator can give the motion command to the robot only direct the target object on the operator console, and the operator can recognize the real-time status of the robot and surrounding visual information. Thus, the operator can interrupt the operation of mobile robot in real-time when in dangerous situation.

If the mobile robot recognizes a danger, the operator and the mobile robot can communicate each other and avoid it. It is important and necessary function for a robot that is operating in human working space, we succeeded to develop this interface.


Fig.4 Image of Operator Console

6. Conclusions

We have developed the mobile robot system which consists of a manipulator, a mobile unit, a visual sensor, a control computer, an operator console and wireless LAN modem, especially we developed the interface system which can communicate between the operator and the robot with various informations. The interface software can show visual information and mobile robot status to the operator. Furthermore it can be controlled from any type of computer and any place by the operator console using internet. We tried to check function of this interface, it was very simple and easy to operate the mobile robot and we also confirmed that it is useful to extend the service area of mobile robot. In the future, we will improve this interface software more interactive and try to use for the obstacle avoidance action.



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References

[1] T.Komeda et al., "Mobile robot system to aid the daily life of bedridden persons in the private house", Proceedings of 2nd European Conference on Advancement Rehabilitation Technology, 1993, 24.4
[2] T.Komeda et al., "Mobile robot system to aid the daily life of bedridden persons in the private house(2nd report)", Proceedings of 3rd European Conference on Advancement Rehabilitation Technology, 1995, pp.179-181
[3] T.Komeda et al., "Mobile robot system to aid the daily life for bedridden persons", Proceedings of 1996 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 1996, pp.2789-2792



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