Dynamic Mobile Manipulation Via Whole-Body Bilateral Teleoperation of a Wheeled Humanoid

Humanoid robots have the potential to help human workers by realizing physically demanding manipulation tasks such as moving large boxes within warehouses. We define such tasks as Dynamic Mobile Manipulation (DMM). This letter presents a framework for DMM via whole-body teleoperation, built upon three key contributions: Firstly, a teleoperation framework em- ploying a Human Machine Interface (HMI) and a bi-wheeled humanoid, SATYRR, is proposed. Secondly, the study introduces a dynamic locomotion mapping, utilizing human-robot reduced order models, and a kinematic retargeting strategy for manipula- tion tasks. Additionally, the letter discusses the role of whole-body haptic feedback for wheeled humanoid control. Finally, the sys- tem’s effectiveness and mappings for DMM are validated through locomanipulation experiments and heavy box pushing tasks. Here weshowtwoformsofDMM:graspingatargetmovingatanaverage speed of 0.4 m/s, and pushing boxes weighing up to 105% of the robot’s weight. By simultaneously adjusting their pitch and using their arms, the pilot adjusts the robot pose to apply larger contact forces and move a heavy box at a constant velocity of 0.2 m/s.