Haptic assistance improves tele-manipulation with two asymmetric slaves

Haptic assistance improves tele-manipulation with two asymmetric slaves

van Oosterhout, J. (TU Delft Human-Robot Interaction; FOM Institute DIFFER - Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research)
Heemskerk, Cock (Heemskerk Innovative Technology)
Boessenkool, H. (TU Delft Biomechatronics & Human-Machine Control; FOM Institute DIFFER - Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research)
De Baar, Marco R. (FOM Institute DIFFER - Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research)
van der Helm, F.C.T. (TU Delft Biomechatronics & Human-Machine Control)
Abbink, D.A. (TU Delft Human-Robot Interaction)

2018

Tele-manipulation of heavy loads typically requires the simultaneous use of two asymmetric slaves: a crane for vertical weight support; and a robot for accurate lateral positioning. The industrial standard prescribes a pair of operators for such tasks (one operator to control each slave), although in principle one operator might control both slaves with a single, hybrid interface. Accurate and safe co-operative handling of the expensive and fragile heavy components is difficult, presumably due to problems in the coordination of the subtasks and the lack of mutual awareness between the two operators. This study proposes a novel haptic assistance system to improve subtask coordination and task performance. Its novelty consists of haptically linking operators/interfaces through the joint task environment. The system's efficacy is evaluated with fifteen pairs of co-operators and fifteen individual uni-manual operators who manoeuvred a heavy load through a bounded path in Virtual Reality. Haptic assistance improves task completion time for both groups. It also reduces control activity and self-reported workload without affecting a number of critical errors made by the operators. Moreover, without haptic assistance, uni-manual operators perform worse than co-operators, but this difference between the interfaces disappears with haptic assistance.

Co-operation
Collaboration
Dyads
Haptic assistance
Haptic shared control
Haptics
Remote handling
Tele-manipulation

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:440b8a22-b0bb-41fe-a540-0bcddaa6513f

https://doi.org/10.1109/TOH.2018.2873350

1939-1412

IEEE Transactions on Haptics, 12 (April-June 2019) (2), 141-153

Accepted Author manuscript

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2018 J. van Oosterhout, Cock Heemskerk, H. Boessenkool, Marco R. De Baar, F.C.T. van der Helm, D.A. Abbink