Intuitive teleoperation of nonholonomic mobile robot with a manipulator based on virtual reality and WiFi

Teleoperation based space systems have received much attention in the past years.This paper reports the construction and the remote control of a nonholonomic robotic system. The system consists of a three-wheeled mobile platform to keep the robot stable and a 6-DOF articulate manipulator on top of the platform. First, we explain how its design and work, then the kinematic model of the robotic platform is presented considering nonholonomic constraints and the inverse kinematics of the manipulator is described. In order to generate a visualized user interface, we adopt a new development in information technology, which is known as virtual reality (VR). All different movements and manual control of the manipulator are shown in a 3-D virtual environment. Teleoperation is realized by using WiFi to transmit the commands and remote desktop from the lower computer to the upper computer. Finally, experiments prove that the proposed remote operation of the robotic system is reliable and efficient.