Experiences in HRI: Design of an interface for a team of multiple heterogeneous robots

From the very beginning, men have used tools to increase their manipulation ability. The development of tools for operating at a distance culminated in the development of teleoperation systems. Teleoperation means simply operating a device at a distance, so that it enables the capability to sense and to act in a remote location. The present paper has as main objective to develop a system to allow any user, independently if he knows the system or the instructions to operate a robot, can teleoperate with the team of robots to achieve a specific task goal, making transparent for that user the differences among the different robots of the team. Thus, an easy-to-use user interface and an effective agent-based human-robot interaction method to enable robust mobile robot teleoperation have been created.