The graphical interface consists of several separate modules providing a powerful and easy to use robot control environment.

Human Computer Interface: Steering Tools

There are two modes of operation:

A. Manual: The system's operator directly controls the movements of the mobile robot. There are two steering tools:
    1. Arrow mode: a set of four arrows hass been built using a HTML-Java interface. A software state machine contols the speed values fo both wheels and takes into account their previous state.
    2. Mosaic mode: the interface is covered by a tile of small switches, one for each wheel.

B. Semi-Automatic: The operator can interactively set some intermediate steps. For example, the operator can tell the mobile robot to go from one position to the next with the option of setting some points in between. The program will create a smooth trajectory between the points.

A display shows the current position and orientation of the robot, and the user can specify the path to be followed by clicking on the mouse. The path generated from the selected points uses smoothed using clothoid curves, which is a cureve whose curvature is a linear function of the distance along the curve.