Intuitive and Versatile Full-body Teleoperation of A Humanoid Robot

Teleoperation of a humanoid is an important topic in robotics research because it can potentially complete most human-capable tasks, especially in places that are unsafe for human beings. However, due to the high number of degrees of freedom in humanoids, it is hard for teleoperated humanoid systems to be versatile and intuitive to use in the same time. Those that are capable of a large variety of tasks usually require the operator to master a complicated control interface; and humanoids that can be teleoperated simply by joysticks or haptic devices are often limited to a few preprogrammed tasks. This paper presents a humanoid teleoperation system where the robot's full body can be teleoperated intuitively by a human operator to complete various tasks and it requires minimal training on the operator. It is built with a human-sized humanoid robot with a stereo camera on its head, a VR headset which provides the operator with a 3D first-person view from that camera and a motion capture suit that records the operator's full-body movement. Matching algorithms are carefully designed between the operator's and robot's full-body motion so that the former can move freely during teleoperation. We demonstrate on the BHR-6 humanoid robot that this system allows inexperienced users to easily teleoperate a humanoid robot to perform various tasks, including manipulating objects and walking.