A Tele-operated Mobile Robotic Platform for Surveillance of Indoor Environments using Wearable Hand Gloves

Abstract

Tele-presence solutions for automated surveillance of indoor environments such as airports, sea ports, commercial buildings and warehouses are gaining wide spread popularity. Such momentum has pushed the boundaries for the research and developmental work towards surveillance robotics. Unlike the conventional static surveillance technologies and devices, those centered on robotic systems are still in infancy with numerous issues open for exploration. Robots have been proven effective in minimizing risks related to safety, physical and respiratory injuries for security personnel in surveillance like scenarios. Most studies with surveillance robots focuses on interaction modalities such as keyboard, joystick or computer keyboards that keep both the operators hands engaged. But, in a hostile set-up the operator are often required to carry another equipment/devices or a weapon to defend them. In this paper, we present a surveillance robot capable of maneuvering in uneven terrain, manipulating complex physical objects and allow tele-operation using  wearable hand gloves. Control of entire mobility and sensor processing with the robot would be realized using hand gestures as captured through hand gloves from one arm only and the other arm could be dedicated for other tasks. The interface was tested using an object manipulation task. For comparison, a simple, game pad input device was also implemented. It was found that the developed hand glove device was clearly superior for the manipulation task.