Remote Interaction with Mobile Robots

This paper describes an architecture, which can be used to build remote laboratories to interact remotely via Internet with mobile robots using different interaction devices. A supervisory control strategy has been used to develop the remote laboratory in order to alleviate high communication data rates and system sensitivity to network delays. The users interact with the remote system at a more abstract level using high level commands. The local robot's autonomy has been increased by encapsulating all the robot's behaviors in different types of skills. User interfaces have been designed using visual proxy pattern to facilitate any future extension or code reuse. The developed remote laboratory has been integrated into an educational environment in the field of indoor mobile robotics. This environment is currently being used as a part of an international project to develop a distributed laboratory for autonomous and teleoperated systems (IECAT, 2003).