Methods of Computer-Assisted Manual Control of Wheeled Robots

This paper deals with possibilities of manual control of wheeled robots. The problem is tested on a robot-soccer application. The manual computer-assisted control module creates an interface between game controller and controlled robot. There are several ways of steering implementation. The simplest is a differential steering. The module currently uses semi-automatic steering which provides a capability to move with the robot as a point. This functionality requires interaction with vision system, usage of Kalman or similar filter and compensators. Next logical step is a fully-assisted steering. This steering system interacts with strategy and motion control module and provides additional functionality such as tracking the ball and shot. The objective is the control of many robots by only one player.