# A Framework for Interactive Teaching of Virtual Borders to Mobile Robots

## TL;DR

This paper presents a flexible, interactive framework for defining virtual borders to control mobile robot workspaces, enabling non-experts to easily teach robots in home environments, improving safety and task accuracy.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a novel visual marker-based framework for interactive virtual border teaching, making robot workspace control accessible to non-experts.

## Key findings

- Framework is accurate and flexible
- Reduces time compared to explicit programming
- Enables non-experts to teach virtual borders

## Abstract

The increasing number of robots in home environments leads to an emerging coexistence between humans and robots. Robots undertake common tasks and support the residents in their everyday life. People appreciate the presence of robots in their environment as long as they keep the control over them. One important aspect is the control of a robot's workspace. Therefore, we introduce virtual borders to precisely and flexibly define the workspace of mobile robots. First, we propose a novel framework that allows a person to interactively restrict a mobile robot's workspace. To show the validity of this framework, a concrete implementation based on visual markers is implemented. Afterwards, the mobile robot is capable of performing its tasks while respecting the new virtual borders. The approach is accurate, flexible and less time consuming than explicit robot programming. Hence, even non-experts are able to teach virtual borders to their robots which is especially interesting in domains like vacuuming or service robots in home environments.