Mobile Robot Destination Generation by Tracking a Remote Controller Using a Vision-aided Inertial Navigation Algorithm

A new remote control algorithm for a mobile robot is proposed, where a remote controller consists of a camera and inertial sensors. Initially the relative position and orientation of a robot is estimated by capturing four circle landmarks on the plate of the robot. When the remote controller moves to point to the destination, the camera pointing trajectory is estimated using an inertial navigation algorithm. The destination is transmitted wirelessly to the robot and then the robot is controlled to move to the destination. A quick movement of the remote controller is possible since the destination is estimated using inertial sensors. Also unlike the vision only control, the robot can be out of camera's range of view.