Using Virtual Articulations to Operate High-DoF Manipulation and Inspection Motions

We have developed a new operator interface system for high-DoF articulated robots based on the idea of allowing the operator to extend the robot’s actual kinematics with virtual articulations. These virtual links and joints can model both primary task DoF and constraints on whole-robot coordinated motion. Unlike other methods, our approach can be applied to robots and tasks of arbitrary kinematic topology, and allows specifying motion with a scalable level of detail. We present hardware results where NASA/JPL’s All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer (ATHLETE) executes previously challenging inspection and manipulation motions involving coordinated motion of all 36 of the robot’s joints.