Robot teleoperation environments featuring WAP-based wireless devices

This article describes the results of a pilot study investigating the feasibility of building teleoperation systems that use existing wireless infrastructure. In particular, it presents the design and implementation of a WAP-based system for mobile robot teleoperation. The system allows the operator to control the movement of a mobile robot equipped with a video camera through a mobile phone. The user periodically receives in the phone screen video frames from the robot camera that depict the camera input before and after the execution of a motion command by the robot. The article presents results of user trials with the system, describes the limitations of this approach and proposes ways of overcoming these limitations.