Novel AR-based interface for human-robot interaction and visualization

Intuitive and efficient interfaces for human-robot interaction (HRI) has been a challenging issue in robotics as it is essential for the prevalence of robots supporting humans in key areas of activities. This paper presents a novel augmented reality (AR) based interface to facilitate human-virtual robot interaction. A number of human-virtual robot interaction methods have been formulated and implemented with respect to the various types of operations needed in different robotic applications. A Euclidean distance-based method is developed to assist the users in the interaction with the virtual robot and the spatial entities in an AR environment. A monitor-based visualization mode is adopted as it enables the users to perceive the virtual contents associated with different interaction methods, and the virtual content augmented in the real environment is informative and useful to the users during their interaction with the virtual robot. Case researches are presented to demonstrate the successful implementation of the AR-based HRI interface in planning robot pick-and-place operations and path following operations.