GHOST in the Robots: Real-Time Exocentric Dual-Robot VR Teleoperation from Onboard Cameras

Abstract:Teleoperating multiple robots simultaneously enables additional views and coordinated control. Yet, it poses fundamental challenges: the system must present sensor data cohesively and allow operators to manage multiple robot bases, arms, and cameras while maintaining low latency. Current multi-robot teleoperation systems require multiple operators, rely on autonomy, or restrict operators to high-level commands. We present GHOST: an open-source VR teleoperation system that enables single operator control of two mobile manipulators via direct lowlevel commands using only onboard sensing. GHOST creates an exocentric 3D workspace by aligning real-time point clouds from the robots' RGB-D cameras, where scene coverage is improved through learning-based completion to aid operator spatial awareness. For control, the operator uses a mode-switching architecture to command either robot individually or both robots simultaneously. Experiments with 15 novice participants demonstrate 1.6-4x the success rate of an off-the-shelf tablet interface. For experts across nine challenging dual-robot tasks, our system enabled completion of two tasks that were infeasible with the tablet, and was 1.47x faster on average than the tablet. Website and code: this https URL.

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2608.29080 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2608.29080v1 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.29080 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2026.3726328 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources

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