This paper presents a simple but effective method for integrating sensors and actuators in both real and virtual environments using an interactive simulator over the Internet. Our research explores the combination of visual feedback and force feedback to enhance our 3D collision avoidance approach for a dual-arm humanoid robot. The robot control server uses 3D vision-based position estimates of obstacles, such as a human hand or objects on the table, to compute a collision-free path in real-time. The dual-arm robot is capable of performing multiple interactive tasks while avoiding collisions between its own arms or with other objects. The interactive simulator provides visual feedback to the user and sends the user's commands to the robot server and the stereo camera server via the Internet. Thus, it is well-designed for robot teleassistance applications. Force feedback effects are generated, using an inexpensive commercially available joystick, to enhance the sensation of the real environment while interacting with the simulation. Finally, experimental results using our collision avoidance approach are presented to demonstrate the performance of this system.
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