Real-time teleoperation with the Baxter robot and the Kinect sensor

Teleoperation includes the control, operation and manipulation of a remote machine, and can be achieved only if the teleoperator transmits sufficient motion information, and the slave reproduces it in a sufficiently articulated and close way. Although there exist different robot models and motion acquisition systems, classical teleoperation techniques still use complex hardware and external sensors limiting the motion of the human operator. One of the reasons is the lack of a proper system integration with new devices. This work proposes a generic real-time teleoperation framework that is independent of the hardware allowing a simple and fast integration with new technologies. This approach is validated by teleoperating a Baxter robot through the motion acquired with a Kinect sensor without the need of external sensors on the operator. The proposed approach can be further extended to different types of robots for different applications.