Gesture based interface for robot control

We present an innovative way to control a robot arm by using a gesture interface. It places the project in its industrial context and gives the background in terms of robot arm control and hand-gesture interfaces. The interface is applied here to remote manual control of a mini-robot arm. The method solves a remote control problem encountered by workers needing to control a remote viewing system where their hands are already busy with other tasks. It is also intended to be more intuitive than traditional joy stick control. The solution is described in terms of design and implementation issues. It consists of a hardware free hand tracking system that enables 3D control with only one hand. A common user interface is also designed using a joystick gamepad controller. Finally, the control solution is compared with the gamepad and another efficient method of control, a haptic device. The gesture interface performed better than the joystick interface but not as well as the much more expensive haptic interface. The major two disadvantages of the gesture interface are the lack of force feedback and the fatigue it introduces for the user.