Wheeled Humanoid Bilateral Teleoperation with Position-Force Control Modes for Dynamic Loco-Manipulation

TL;DR

This paper presents a bilateral teleoperation framework for humanoid robots that enables dynamic loco-manipulation tasks by switching between position and force control modes, enhancing remote manipulation capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces loco-manipulation retargeting strategies with switched control modes and a haptic feedback interface for improved whole-body teleoperation of humanoids.

Findings

Robot successfully slots heavy boxes up to 83% of its weight.

Demonstrated human-robot collaboration in object carrying tasks.

Effective control of robot's position and force modes via torso and arm mappings.

Abstract

Remote-controlled humanoid robots can revolutionize manufacturing, construction, and healthcare industries by performing complex or dangerous manual tasks traditionally done by humans. We refer to these behaviors as Dynamic Loco-Manipulation (DLM). To successfully complete these tasks, humans control the position of their bodies and contact forces at their hands. To enable similar whole-body control in humanoids, we introduce loco-manipulation retargeting strategies with switched position and force control modes in a bilateral teleoperation framework. Our proposed locomotion mappings use the pitch and yaw of the operator's torso to control robot position or acceleration. The manipulation retargeting maps the operator's arm movements to the robot's arms for joint-position or impedance control of the end-effector. A Human-Machine Interface captures the teleoperator's motion and provides haptic feedback to their torso, enhancing their awareness of the robot's interactions with the environment. In this paper, we demonstrate two forms of DLM. First, we show the robot slotting heavy boxes (5-10.5 kg), weighing up to 83% of the robot's weight, into desired positions. Second, we show human-robot collaboration for carrying an object, where the robot and teleoperator take on leader and follower roles.