Interface design and implementation for mono-functional modular robots

This paper describes interface design and implementation based on a concept of simple instruction by pointing environmental features on navigation task of a modular robot system. The robot system is constructed by attaching modules (e.g. camera or mobile mechanism) to objects or a working environment distributively. The attached modules achieve tasks through cooperation, after constructing the system. Assuming that the system is constructed in different environments depending on tasks, the system is not expected to have knowledge of environment for autonomous behaviors. According to this, we propose a simple interface with instructing tasks on multi displayed images of cameras which are attached in unknown wider working area. The main features of the interface are as follows: (1)Indication of over lapped view of cameras for support human recognition of working area, (2) Easy precise operation by pointing environmental features on captured images. Our experiments show the effectiveness of our interface and the whole robot system.