The MobilAR Robot, Ubiquitous, Unobtrusive, Augmented Reality Device

We present a new mobile Augmented Reality device that combines mobile robotics, human-robots interactions, and 3D modeling to augment users’ perception of their environment. The developed device, the MobilAR, provides minimally intrusive AR, where users do not need to wear any apparatus and no markers are used to align real and virtual entities. The mobilAR design is as follow: a projector is mounted on the end-effector of a robotic arm, itself mounted on a wheeled platform. The robotic arm allows to project undistorted content on any part of the environment such as walls, floor, ceiling and objects by using the right image transformation. The mobile base makes it possible to have the projector anywhere inside a building. The device uses self-localization and computer vision techniques to model the physical world and augment it. The mobilAR platform also encompasses a gesture recognition module for user interaction. As a proof-of-concept, we implemented a simple guided tour scenario of our laboratory where the MobilAR follows a user and projects contents on any surface. Results and extensions of this work are also discussed.