Manual, Semi or Fully Autonomous Flipper Control? A Framework for Fair Comparison
Valentýn Cíhala, Martin Pecka, Tomás Svoboda, Karel Zimmermann
Abstract
We investigated the performance of existing semiand fully autonomous methods for controlling flipper-based skid-steer robots. Our study involves the reimplementation of these methods for a fair comparison, and it introduces a novel semi-autonomous control policy that provides a compelling trade-off among current state-of-the-art approaches. We also propose new metrics for assessing cognitive load and traversal quality and offer a benchmarking interface for generating Quality-Load graphs from recorded data. Our results, presented in a 2D Quality-Load space, demonstrate that the new control policy effectively bridges the gap between autonomous and manual control methods. Additionally, we reveal a surprising fact that fully manual, continuous control of all six degrees of freedom remains highly effective when performed by an experienced operator on a well-designed analog controller from a third-person view.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2025_manualsemiorfull,
title = {Manual, Semi or Fully Autonomous Flipper Control? A Framework for Fair Comparison},
author = {Valentýn Cíhala and Martin Pecka and Tomás Svoboda and Karel Zimmermann},
booktitle = {ICRA 2025},
year = {2025}
}