Self-Centering 3-DoF Feet Controller for Hands-Free Locomotion Control in Telepresence and Virtual Reality

TL;DR

The proposed self-centering feet controller was used successfully for the ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition, where a naive operator traversed the robot through a longer distance, surpassing obstacles while solving various interaction and manipulation tasks in between.

Abstract

We present a novel seated feet controller for handling 3-DoF aimed to control locomotion for telepresence robotics and virtual reality environments. Tilting the feet on two axes yields in forward, backward and sideways motion. In addition, a separate rotary joint allows for rotation around the vertical axis. Attached springs on all joints self-center the controller. The HTC Vive tracker is used to translate the trackers' orientation into locomotion commands. The proposed self-centering feet controller was used successfully for the ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition, where a naive operator traversed the robot through a longer distance, surpassing obstacles while solving various interaction and manipulation tasks in between. We publicly provide the models of the mostly 3D-printed feet controller for reproduction.

Figures (7)

• Figure 2: Feet controller with its controllable axes.
• Figure 3: Self-centering 3D rudder design with individually tunable springs for intuitive locomotion control.
• Figure 4: Controller configurations and their resulting locomotion commands (simplified without springs).
• Figure 5: Locomotion controller in operation.
• Figure 6: Rendered views from for the proposed locomotion controller.