Remotely controlled semi-autonomous robot with multimedia abilities

This paper describes NITRO, a remotely controlled semi-autonomous robot. NITRO is a prototype built to explore real-time semi-autonomous motion control, audio/video streaming, different forms of human-machine interaction, mobility and connectivity in wireless networks. It is intended to be used as an easily manageable mobile multimedia center, providing information to people in the near of the robot, offering at the same time connectivity with the remote operator. NITRO was built using commercially available hardware components. The integration of different technologies (robotics, multimedia, videophone and networking) has led to identification of new features, which improves the robot, like acoustic echo cancellation, face detection, recognition and tracking, semi-autonomous behavior and wireless network roaming. Finally, NITRO became a suitable platform for further research and development.