Advance Modeling of a Skid-Steering Mobile Robot for Remote ...

Introduction 3both the user and the robot side, as the high level motion commands are generated from theremote workstation by the user through the interface, like the desired position on the map orthe camera motion, while the low level motion commands, like the path planning betweenthe current and the desired position of the robot, are generated directly on-board. Finally,the last three aspects involve only the robot-side and assume particular importance when thetelepresence application requires high autonomy.It is worth to notice that, although all interfaces provide tools to perceive the remote environmentto make decisions and to generate commands, an autonomous navigation is alwaysneeded because of the limited user perception of the environment, due to limitations of sensordata and control, and unpredictable delays in communication, due to varying network conditions.For this reason, acquiring and processing the sensor data locally allows the robot totake immediate action, thereby providing a tighter closed loop control of the robot. However,the importance of the operator interface does not diminish as level of autonomy increases.Even if a robot is capable of operating autonomously, it still needs to convey to the operatorhow and what it did during task execution. This is particularly important when the robotencounters problems or fails to complete a task. Thus, as robots become more autonomous,interfaces are used less for control and more for monitoring and diagnosis.Figure 2: Flowchart representing the telepresence paradigm.