An AR Debugging Tool for Robotics Programmers

Bryce Ikeda, Daniel Szafir

Keywords: Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Robots, Debugging, ARHMD, Interface Design

TL;DR: We develop an augmented reality debugging tool to help roboticists debug robots as well as outline a proposed study to evaluate our system.

Abstract: Programming robots is a challenging task exacerbated by environmental factors, faulty hardware, and software bugs. When coding issues arise, traditional debugging techniques such as output logs or added print statements that may help in typical computer applications are not always useful for roboticists. This is because robots often have an array of sensors that output complex data types, which can be difficult to decipher as raw text data. As an alternative, we explore how an augmented reality head mounted display (ARHMD) may facilitate robotics programming by providing a medium for conveying 3D visualizations of robot data superimposed directly into the programmer’s environment. Such visualizations can provide users with an intuitive way to confirm their understanding of the robot’s inner state and sensor data. In this paper, we outline an augmented reality (AR) debugging tool for aiding roboticists with analyzing and fixing programs that elicit unwanted robot behavior and propose a series of planned studies to further understand the intersection of robotics programming and AR.

Track: extended abstract

Broader Impacts: We hope to develop a general purpose debugging tool for roboticists that will reduce the time, steps and effort of programming a robot by increasing the programmers understanding of robot data via intuitive in situ visualizations.