An augmented reality user interface for operating a mobile robot in analog planetary research

The operation and maintenance of a robotic system in the field requires many skills. One must be familiar with mechanical, electrical, and software engineering issues to be able to independently operate, maintain and repair the platform. Since not all end-users have these skills, user manuals in form of paper-based instructions are provided to ease the operation, maintenance and troubleshooting of the systems. However, this type of manual is often prone to misinterpretation and poor usability. In a challenging environment, such as in space, handling errors must be reduced to a absolute minimum and the usability of a system must be guaranteed to ensure human safety. To overcome this problem, this paper presents a concept for an augmented reality user manual to operate, maintain, and repair a mobile robot which is used in the experiment ExoScot as a part of the analog planetary mission in Amadee-20. By conducting marker-less tracking, the robot’s pose can be estimated within the environment which allows to augment virtual objects onto it and to give additional information about the operator’s task. The concept is applied in a first prototype as proof-of-concept. The main purpose of the first prototype was to observe the user interaction and get feedback on the AR system, from the user point-of-view for the future application of the system in the Amadee-20 mission. This work focuses on the investigation of an AR user manual for the use case of analog planetary research. Other possible applications are not explicitly excluded and are conceivable for further investigations