Towards a Virtual Reality Interface for Remote Robotic Teleoperation

Intuitive interaction is the cornerstone of efficient and effective task execution in remote robotic teleoperation. It requires high-fidelity in control actions as well as perception (vision, haptic, and sensory feedback) from the remote environment. This paper presents Vicarios, a VR-based teleoperation interface with the aim of facilitating intuitive real-time remote teleoperation, while utilizing the inherent benefits of VR, including immersive visualization, freedom of viewpoint selection, and fluidity of interaction through natural action interfaces. The overall architecture of Vicarios is described, with its components and framework. A preliminary comparative user study, with a real-world tele-manipulation task, was conducted to quantify the effectiveness of Vicarios. It is shown that the VR-based interface is easy-to-use and learn, with an overall learning rate of 0.93 sec. per trial for the users. The smoothness metric shows that the users can improve on their task performance over time as well. Vicarios allows the intuitiveness and flexibility to maintain efficiency in tele-robotic tasks. It forms the basis for an immersive perception interface in remote robotic teleoperation.