Wiimote+Robot

Experiments in ges­tural con­trol of a six-axis (plus two ex­ter­nal axes) in­dus­trial ro­bot. The first im­ple­men­ta­tion we are aware of us­ing such con­trol of a stan­dard in­dus­trial ro­bot in a tight feed­back loop with peo­ple.

As an ex­per­i­ment, we made a table-top game - Wiiroball - which al­lows two play­ers to each con­trol a mo­tion-re­stricted ro­bot with a Nintendo Wii con­troller. The ball is butted into the op­po­nen­t’s goal, and a third, gantry mounted ro­bot swings around to pick it up and put it back into play.

While the Wiimote sup­ports a very nat­ural form of in­ter­ac­tion, we are still seek­ing to ad­dress some fun­da­men­tal is­sues with con­trol la­tency to im­prove the ex­pe­ri­ence.