Development of a physically behaved robot work cell in virtual reality for task teaching

Robot task teaching on a real work cell is expensive and sometimes risky. This cost and risk can be avoided by using virtual reality technology. Using the simulated environment in virtual reality (VR), the operator can practise, explore and preview the operations for possible problems that might occur during implementation. It is therefore of practical importance to build the virtual robot work cell in VR that can facilitate the study of the performance of robotic tasks such as robotic assembly. This paper describes our work in incorporating physical behaviours of virtual objects into VR for robot task teaching. To facilitate the task teaching, we developed visual and audio cues which help visualise the dynamic interactions between virtual objects. Dynamic sensing capability is incorporated in the simulated environment. A simplified force sensor is modelled and simulated. The physical behaviours of the virtual objects are simulated using physics-based approach. A virtual robot work cell is built incorporating the developed features and an example for the task teaching is given. The implementation includes view tracking using virtual camera, visual and audio rendering, and the user interface developed in the VR. The current implementation was carried out on a PC-based VR platform, with the programs developed using Watcom C++.