Heavy lifting tasks via haptic teleoperation of a wheeled humanoid

TL;DR

This paper introduces a teleoperation framework for a wheeled humanoid robot that enables human pilots to perform heavy lifting tasks through whole-body control, haptic feedback, and dynamic balance assistance, validated with real-world experiments.

Contribution

It presents a novel teleoperation system integrating haptic feedback and whole-body motion retargeting for dynamic mobile manipulation of heavy payloads.

Findings

Successful lifting of payloads up to 2.5 kg (21% of robot mass)

Effective balance assistance through different telelocomotion mappings

Demonstrated coordinated control of posture, locomotion, and manipulation

Abstract

Humanoid robots can support human workers in physically demanding environments by performing tasks that require whole-body coordination, such as lifting and transporting heavy objects.These tasks, which we refer to as Dynamic Mobile Manipulation (DMM), require the simultaneous control of locomotion, manipulation, and posture under dynamic interaction forces. This paper presents a teleoperation framework for DMM on a height-adjustable wheeled humanoid robot for carrying heavy payloads. A Human-Machine Interface (HMI) enables whole-body motion retargeting from the human pilot to the robot by capturing the motion of the human and applying haptic feedback. The pilot uses body motion to regulate robot posture and locomotion, while arm movements guide manipulation.Real time haptic feedback delivers end effector wrenches and balance related cues, closing the loop between human perception and robot environment interaction. We evaluate the different telelocomotion mappings that offer varying levels of balance assistance, allowing the pilot to either manually or automatically regulate the robot's lean in response to payload-induced disturbances. The system is validated in experiments involving dynamic lifting of barbells and boxes up to 2.5 kg (21% of robot mass), demonstrating coordinated whole-body control, height variation, and disturbance handling under pilot guidance. Video demo can be found at: https://youtu.be/jF270_bG1h8?feature=shared