DARPA Robotics Challenge: Towards a user-guided manipulation framework for high-DOF robots

Nicholas Alunni, Halit Bener Suay, Calder Phillips-Grafflin, Jim Mainprice, Dmitry Berenson, Sonia Chernova, Robert W. Lindeman, Daniel M. Lofaro, Paul Y. Oh

Abstract: Supervision and teleoperation of high degree-of-freedom robots is a complex task due to environmental constraints such as obstacles and limited communication, as well as task specific requirements such as using more than one end-effector at the same time. In this work we present a supervision and teleoperation framework that allows an operator to see the surroundings of a robot in 3D, make necessary adjustments for a dual or single arm manipulation task, preview the task in simulation before execution, and finally execute the task on a real robot. The framework has been applied to the valve turning task of the DARPA Robotics Challenge on the PR2, Hubo2+, and DRCHubo robots.