This video shows the implementation of a virtual reality system for performing various dexterous manipulation tasks for a MELFA collaborative robot. We demonstrate the use of the proposed system for performing 8 different manipulation tasks of varying degrees of complexity. A paper reporting these results has been submitted to CASE 23.

We address the problem of telecontrolling an industrial robot manipulator via a commercially available Virtual Reality (VR) interface. Previous works on VR teleoperation for robot manipulators focus primarily on collaborative or research robot platforms (whose dynamics and limitations differ from those of industrial robot arms), or focus only on tasks where the robot's dynamics are not as important ( for example: pick and place tasks). We investigate the use of commercially available VR interfaces to effectively telework industrial robot manipulators in a variety of high-contact manipulation tasks. We find that applying standard practices for VR control of robotic arms is challenging for industrial platforms because torque and speed control are not visible and position control is mediated via a black-box controller. To alleviate these problems, we propose a simplified filtering approach to process command signals so that operators can effectively telecontrol industrial robotic arms with VR interfaces in agile manipulation tasks. We hope that our findings will help robot practitioners implement and establish effective VR teleoperation interfaces for robot manipulators. The proposed method is demonstrated on a variety of high-contact manipulation tasks, which may also involve high-precision movements of the robot during execution.

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