Teleoperation of a Semi-Humanoid for Construction with Underactuated Dexterous Hands

Mobile manipulators, consisting of mobile platforms, robotic arms, and hands, could transform on‐site construction. While automation of such robots is still in its infancy in construction practices, lightweight and accessible teleoperation technologies are needed for remote operation and for collecting demonstration data. However, teleoperating a mobile manipulator for coordinated movements remains challenging due to managing multiple degrees of freedom and stability, especially when using low-cost solutions such as underactuated hands and virtual reality platforms. This paper introduces a lightweight, VR‐based teleoperation framework that converts noisy, asymmetric human‐motion data into stable, coordinated commands for a mobile manipulator executing construction tasks. The framework integrates a human interface and tracking module, a filtering and resampling module, and an ergonomic mapping module for kinematics transformation. We deployed the system on a commercial mobile manipulator and evaluated it on representative construction subtasks, including object transport, screw‐gun manipulation, and overhead inspection.