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The start – simulation, virtual reality, and teleoperation

By August 27, 2018 No Comments

We knew getting the basic robot in simulation was the first step and that teleoperation in VR was next. So naturally we went out and bought an HTC Vive VR kit for roughly $1,000. The Vive is made up of three components and a bunch of cables. The headset, two controllers, and the two sensors (those two boxes). The boxes are mounted diagonally from each other and should be above the user, pointed downward. The first issue we ran into was that the Vive isn’t exactly compatible with Linux. This is an issue since we will be using it with ROS, Gazebo, and Rviz (aka Linux is a must). There was some existing projects that enabled compatibility but they weren’t super robust (graphics card issues). A few days of work and the Vive was up and running (post with the open sourced code coming soon #upcomingpost).

The obviously next step was to get the robot model in the simulated environment and get to work…so of course we immediately downloaded BEAT SABER!!!

All I’m going to say is…living legend on expert mode 😉

Ok back to work…we now have the ability to see the robot in the virtual environment and control the robot’s movement. It’s a good start but where is the money shot.

and we are cleaning bathrooms, virtual ones for the moment – the start.

SOMATIC

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