A Mixed Reality System for Interaction with Heterogeneous Robotic Systems

TL;DR

This paper presents a mixed reality system enabling intuitive interaction with heterogeneous robots in dynamic industrial scenarios, validated through virtual reality testing with positive performance and user feedback.

Contribution

It introduces a mixed reality interface for managing diverse robotic systems, enhancing interaction efficiency in complex, real-world industrial environments.

Findings

Effective virtual manipulation of robot replicas demonstrated.

Positive user feedback on interaction ease and system usability.

Quantitative performance metrics showed improved task management.

Abstract

The growing spread of robots for service and industrial purposes calls for versatile, intuitive and portable interaction approaches. In particular, in industrial environments, operators should be able to interact with robots in a fast, effective, and possibly effortless manner. To this end, reality enhancement techniques have been used to achieve efficient management and simplify interactions, in particular in manufacturing and logistics processes. Building upon this, in this paper we propose a system based on mixed reality that allows a ubiquitous interface for heterogeneous robotic systems in dynamic scenarios, where users are involved in different tasks and need to interact with different robots. By means of mixed reality, users can interact with a robot through manipulation of its virtual replica, which is always colocated with the user and is extracted when interaction is needed. The system has been tested in a simulated intralogistics setting, where different robots are present and require sporadic intervention by human operators, who are involved in other tasks. In our setting we consider the presence of drones and AGVs with different levels of autonomy, calling for different user interventions. The proposed approach has been validated in virtual reality, considering quantitative and qualitative assessment of performance and user's feedback.