This paper addresses the problem of safe and efficient navigation in remotely controlled robots operating in hazardous and unstructured environments; or conducting other remote robotic tasks. A shared control method is presented which blends the commands from a VFH+ obstacle avoidance navigation module with the teleoperation commands provided by an operator via a joypad. The presented approach offers several advantages such as flexibility allowing for a straightforward adaptation of the controller's behaviour and easy integration with variable autonomy systems; as well as the ability to cope with dynamic environments. The advantages of the presented controller are demonstrated by an experimental evaluation in a disaster response scenario. More specifically, presented evidence show a clear performance increase in terms of safety and task completion time compared to a pure teleoperation approach, as well as an ability to cope with previously unobserved obstacles.
@article{arxiv.2011.05228,
title = {VFH+ based shared control for remotely operated mobile robots},
author = {Pantelis Pappas and Manolis Chiou and Georgios-Theofanis Epsimos and Grigoris Nikolaou and Rustam Stolkin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.05228},
year = {2021}
}