Direct tele-teaching with handy homothetic robot for multi-limbed working robot

The paper proposes a direct motion tele-teaching system for tele-operation of multi-limbed working robots. In this system, we use a small homothetic robot which is easily handled by operator's hands, whose configuration is similar to the tele-operation robot. In the basic flow of the system, firstly an operator makes the motion by manually operating the small robot and the motion data is recorded. Then, the motion will be confirmed via a simulator and the command will finally be applied to the tele-operation robot. The challenging problem is how a single operator could operate multiple limbs of the robot at the same time. Moreover, the tips of supporting limbs must keep contact to the environment during the other body's motion. In order to solve these problems, the system will save the motion data discretely during the operation, and the proposed teaching system discretely synchronizes the small robot and the tele-operation robot. In the experiments, a six-limbed robot “ASTERISK” is used as a tele-operation robot, and a handy homothetic robot is made. We confirm that our proposed system is intuitively used for operating multi-limbed robot using a handy homothetic robot.