Improvement of Trajectory Errors on Remote- Controlled Differential Drive Robot via Mobilebased GUI through Bluetooth Connection

There has been an increase of interest and demand in the usage of logistic indoor service robots that are designed to minimize interactions between humans due to the occurrence of the COVID-19 outbreak. The application of the rising technology in the medical sector has great benefits in the industry, such as the prevention of the spread of highly infectious diseases using distance as a factor. Rooting from the purpose of the said robot, the main focus should be the ease of navigation through achieving the desired trajectory, in order to maximize the functionality, prevent collision, reduce user maneuvering difficulties, and such. Hence, this paper is focused on improving the trajectory errors on the robot navigation performance based on different control system designs specifically, a physical joystick controller and a mobile-based Bluetooth application controller. The design of the joystick is based on a pivot as its base which is directed to all angles and the design of the Bluetooth app is based on fourdirectional buttons that will operate upon clicking, and switching to other buttons to change commands. With this, the researchers conducted linear path and rotational tests using both remote control modes that are based on five varying speed values of 0.75 m/s, 0.5m/s, 0.35m/s, 0.25m/s, and 0.15 m/s. Based on the data analysis, the yielded results showed that using the Bluetooth app lowers the robot's trajectory error by 50% to 60% compared to using ajoystick to navigate to the desired point. Thus, the researchers concluded that the design of a control system greatly affects the robot navigation in achieving the desired trajectory. Considering the nonsystematic errors, a calibration based on the hardware structure design specifically on the caster wheel is recommended. © 2023 IEEE.

Design Development of VEhicle for Delivery of Goods in Hazardous Areas (VEDHA)

With the development of mankind and growth of our civilization, more and more need is felt for exploration of and working in hazardous environments. The fast development of technology and capability to perform complex computing has made it possible for mankind to remotely perform some work which would otherwise require manual working in close proximity of hazardous environment. Thus mankind has been able to develop remotely controlled vehicle to explore the hazardous environment. A semi-autonomous Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) is developed in the present work. A webcam and sensors mounted on the ROV transmits the picture of the immediate neighbourhood and data collected by sensors, to the computer stationed in a remote control room using a Arduino and a few other modules. The picture and sensor data are presented to the operator by a Man Machine Interface. The operator remotely controls the movement of the ROV using a Joystick interfaced to the computer. The ROV has been successfully tested in an infectious disease ward ( like covid ward) of a hospital to deliver medicine, food, clothes and goods to the patients who are suffering from infectious disease by a health care person controlling the ROV from a remote control room. © 2022 IEEE.

User Movement for Safety Training in a Virtual Chemistry Lab

Virtual Reality (VR) has become a large area of focus especially after the effects of COVID-19. During the lockdown students had to partake in different methods of learning outside of the traditional face-to-face classroom setting. In this paper, we focus on the type of locomotion that students would utilize when traversing in a virtual environment. We studied the effectiveness of two types of movement the first being Embodied Movement, or movement through the Head Mounted Display (HMD) device such as the Oculus Quest, or the HTC VIVE, and the second form of movement being Joystick Movement through the use of a thumb stick on an attached controller. To test these movements, we implemented a scenario in a virtual chemistry lab, where the user’s vision is impaired, and they would need to navigate throughout the scene to reach a safety shower that once activated would restore their vision. Our results show that using the joystick controller was more suitable for this type of experiment in terms of user preference and the speed of which the user completed the task. Our results also show that for some subjects when partaking in the study, mild cyber-sickness was prevalent and further investigation is needed on how to mitigate its effects. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.