Robot telekinesis: an interactive showcase

Abstract

Unlike large and dangerous industrial robots on production lines in factories that are strictly fenced off, collaborative robots are smaller and safer, and can be installed adjacent to human workers and collaborate with them. However, controlling and teaching new moves to collaborative robots can be difficult and time-consuming when using existing methods such as pressing buttons on a teaching pendant or directly grabbing and moving the robot by force (direct teaching). We present Robot Telekinesis, a novel robot-interaction technique that allows the user to remotely control the movement of the end effector of a robot arm with unimanual and bimanual hand gestures that closely resemble handling a physical object. Robot Telekinesis is as intuitive and fast as direct teaching, without the physical demands of direct teaching.