Semi-Autonomous Planning and Visualization in Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) interfaces for robots provide a three-dimensional (3D) view of the robot in its environment, which allows people to better plan complex robot movements in tight or cluttered spaces. In our prior work, we created a VR interface to allow for the teleoperation of a humanoid robot. As detailed in this paper, we have now focused on a human-in-the-loop planner where the operator can send higher level manipulation and navigation goals in VR through functional waypoints, visualize the results of a robot planner in the 3D virtual space, and then deny, alter or confirm the plan to send to the robot. In addition, we have adapted our interface to also work for a mobile manipulation robot in addition to the humanoid robot. For a video demonstration please see the accompanying video at https://youtu.be/wEHZug_fxrA.