Self-Centering 3-DoF Feet Controller for Hands-Free Locomotion Control in Telepresence and Virtual Reality

We present a novel seated feet controller for handling 3-DoF aimed to control locomotion for telepresence robotics and virtual reality environments. Tilting the feet on two axes yields in forward, backward and sideways motion. In addition, a separate rotary joint allows for rotation around the vertical axis. Attached springs on all joints self-center the controller. The HTC Vive tracker is used to translate the trackers’ orientation into locomotion commands. The proposed self-centering feet controller was used successfully for the ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition, where a naive operator traversed the robot through a longer distance, surpassing obstacles while solving various interaction and manipulation tasks in between. We publicly provide the models of the mostly 3D-printed feet controller for reproduction.

  • Published in:
    arXiv
  • Type:
    Article
  • Authors:
    Memmesheimer, Raphael; Lenz, Christian; Schwarz, Max; Schreiber, Michael; Behnke, Sven
  • Year:
    2024
  • Source:
    https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.02319

Citation information

Memmesheimer, Raphael; Lenz, Christian; Schwarz, Max; Schreiber, Michael; Behnke, Sven: Self-Centering 3-DoF Feet Controller for Hands-Free Locomotion Control in Telepresence and Virtual Reality, arXiv, 2024, August, https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.02319, Memmesheimer.etal.2024b,