Remote control system for multiple mobile robots using touch panel interface and autonomous mobility

Moving to the location designated by the user is the most fundamental task for a mobile robot. Remote control is one of the effective solutions to navigate the robot to the target location, but the user suffers from the burden to continuously concentrate on the remote control. As the result, several users are required in accordance with the number of robots to operate. In this paper, we propose the remote control system that uses touch panel interface, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and motion planning to achieve autonomy of mobile robots. To navigate the robot in the proposed system, the user only designates the destination and via-points by touching on the map estimated by the SLAM. After receiving the user´s input, the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) generates the feasible path to the destination using the estimated map. The effectiveness of the proposed system is verified through experiments where multiple mobile robots are remotely controlled.