Forbidden region virtual fixtures from streaming point clouds

Forbidden region virtual fixtures protect objects from unwanted contact with a robot. In this paper, we propose a method for creating forbidden region haptic virtual fixtures for teleoperation from streaming point clouds obtained by an RGB-D camera. Upon violating the protected area, the operator receives force feedback that opposes motion inside the forbidden region. Three architectures for creating virtual fixtures are presented and their advantages and disadvantages are described. The proposed methods have the ability to implement constraints and can handle dynamic environments in real-time. The effectiveness of the methods is demonstrated in experiments with a surgical robot.