A Framework for Interactive Teaching of Virtual Borders to Mobile Robots
This addresses the need for user control over robots in domestic settings, such as vacuuming or service tasks, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing concepts like virtual borders with a new interactive method.
The paper tackles the problem of controlling mobile robots' workspaces in home environments by introducing virtual borders, enabling non-experts to interactively define these borders with an accurate and flexible framework that reduces time compared to explicit programming.
The increasing number of robots in home environments leads to an emerging coexistence between humans and robots. Robots undertake common tasks and support the residents in their everyday life. People appreciate the presence of robots in their environment as long as they keep the control over them. One important aspect is the control of a robot's workspace. Therefore, we introduce virtual borders to precisely and flexibly define the workspace of mobile robots. First, we propose a novel framework that allows a person to interactively restrict a mobile robot's workspace. To show the validity of this framework, a concrete implementation based on visual markers is implemented. Afterwards, the mobile robot is capable of performing its tasks while respecting the new virtual borders. The approach is accurate, flexible and less time consuming than explicit robot programming. Hence, even non-experts are able to teach virtual borders to their robots which is especially interesting in domains like vacuuming or service robots in home environments.