Robot teleoperation using a vision-based manipulation method

Human-robot interaction is necessary in remote teleoperation of robot manipulators, especially when the environment is unstructured and objects are unfamiliar. In traditional interactive methods using contacting mechanical devices, the motion of the operator is restricted and unnatural. While camera-based tracking has the benefit of being non-contact, previous vision-based approaches have used only few degrees of freedom for hand motion and have required hand motions that are unnatural for object manipulation tasks. This paper presents a non-contact vision based method for robot tele-operation. By tracking the operator's hand using two cameras, the three-dimensional position and orientation of the hand is acquired to manipulate the robot. This method allows the operator's to perform natural and intuitive motions to manipulate the robot, which laid a solid foundation for effective teleoperation of robots.