Development of a Virtual Reality System for Human Robot Interaction

Testability of robotic applications is difficult due to several reasons including the battery limitations of mobile robots, hardware wear and tear, inadequate number of the robots, etc. In this project, we will implement a simulation environment where the robot will interact with humans. In order to make this interaction more realistic, Virtual Reality technology will be used. A human will be simulated and controlled by the user. The user is expected to interact with the robot in controlled experiments.

The project involves:

• Design and implementation of a Human-Robot interaction scenario in the V-Rep Simulator.
• Development of an Android application to show the simulation environment (as in the eyes of the human model in the simulation) and send the gyroscope and accolometer data of the user to the simulator.
• Building a communication platform between Android phone and V-Rep by using ROS (Robot Operating System)