Robot Avatar Brushes Cat Remotely in Virtual Reality [Kinect, Wii, HMD, Treadmill, NAO]

This is the culmination of my last year's work. I control the robot's arms through the Kinect and Wii remotes. I control the robot's navigation through the Kinect and treadmill. I control the robot's head through the head mounted display (HMD). I also see through the robot's eyes with the HMD.

After doing this exercise, it became apparent that the next feature to add is hearing and speaking through the robot. Luckily both the NAO and my HMD have microphones and speakers so this shouldn't be too difficult.

This was the second try accomplishing brushing the cat. On the first try we discovered that the positioning of the brush in NAO's hand needed to be flipped 180 degrees from the intuitive direction.

The low framerate is because my ancient laptop can't handle doing a screen capture with all this stuff going on.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NAO
• robot
• avatar
• teleoperation
• virtual
• reality
• wii
• kinect
• treadmill
• cat
• hmd
• vusix

[rooroo1988]

I know I'm not the only one thinking about military equipped robots in the future with this capability.

[taylorveltrop]

@rooroo1988 I'm dreading the inevitability.

[MrLenin]

At what distance were you from the robot?

[taylorveltrop]

@MrLenin I was about 4 meters away. Small apartment. Soon I'll try this cross-continental.

[stop4stuff]

Awesome, looks like you could also do with a 3D or steroscopic camera on the robot for better perception of depth. Do you have any failsafes, e.g. if you fall off the treadmill does the robot fall over too?

[taylorveltrop]

@stop4stuff If I am not over the treadmill the robot won't move. If my torso is lower than a meter the robot sits down.

[MissTritium365]

I hope this kitty got a big treat of tuna! What good boy. Great job with the set up. I'm impressed!

[taylorveltrop]

@MissTritium365 Yup, got a big serving of human-food tuna.

[c4blew]

@rooroo1988 I don´t think the military has that many cats to brush! :P

[gspott100]

Hey, want u try robot on my cat? To try his self-defense capabilities:D

[hootyhaha]

You're a very smart dude.

[tv16bit]

Why are we not funding this?

[fernandocchitj]

sheldom would like this

[monkeymatches]

Dudes gotta have an asian girlfriend right?

[boofdas]

"Huston, I am now approaching the lifeform." "Roger, proceed with caution."

[SpiderAbu]

@P1n3ApPL3chan eyyy Ièll use the POWER of da CELL. that should be powerful enough to hold em back...plus all the training I got with Sports Champions, I think I can take em all with a sword and a shield!....I thinkk....

[MrDaveyBeamish]

BRUSH!