Indirect Torso Posture Control and Force-Guided Singularity Avoidance for Humanoid Teleoperation System using Exoskeleton Cockpit

Cockpit-style exoskeleton systems are a promising approach for the whole-body teleoperation of humanoid robots, yet they face two major challenges. The first is the difficulty of intuitive torso posture control, arising from the operator’s seated and constrained posture. The second is the lack of transparent feedback for kinematic singularities, which do not manifest as physical forces. This paper proposes two novel methods to address these respective challenges: 1) an indirect torso control interface that converts the operator’s foot- actuated torque into the robot’s torso angular velocity, and 2) a haptic feedback scheme that guides the operator’s arm away from singularities based on the gradient of the arm’s manipulability measure. We implemented these methods into a teleoperation system and successfully demonstrated tasks such as picking up an object from the floor and an operator’s active avoidance of singular postures.