Gong Yijie, Mat Husin Haliza, Erol Ecda, Ortenzi Valerio, Kuchenbecker Katherine J
Haptic Intelligence Department, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany.
Mechanical Engineering, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.
Front Robot AI. 2024 May 21;11:1355205. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2024.1355205. eCollection 2024.
Teleoperation allows workers to safely control powerful construction machines; however, its primary reliance on visual feedback limits the operator's efficiency in situations with stiff contact or poor visibility, hindering its use for assembly of pre-fabricated building components. Reliable, economical, and easy-to-implement haptic feedback could fill this perception gap and facilitate the broader use of robots in construction and other application areas. Thus, we adapted widely available commercial audio equipment to create AiroTouch, a naturalistic haptic feedback system that measures the vibration experienced by each robot tool and enables the operator to feel a scaled version of this vibration in real time. Accurate haptic transmission was achieved by optimizing the positions of the system's off-the-shelf accelerometers and voice-coil actuators. A study was conducted to evaluate how adding this naturalistic type of vibrotactile feedback affects the operator during telerobotic assembly. Thirty participants used a bimanual dexterous teleoperation system (Intuitive da Vinci Si) to build a small rigid structure under three randomly ordered haptic feedback conditions: no vibrations, one-axis vibrations, and summed three-axis vibrations. The results show that users took advantage of both tested versions of the naturalistic haptic feedback after gaining some experience with the task, causing significantly lower vibrations and forces in the second trial. Subjective responses indicate that haptic feedback increased the realism of the interaction and reduced the perceived task duration, task difficulty, and fatigue. As hypothesized, higher haptic feedback gains were chosen by users with larger hands and for the smaller sensed vibrations in the one-axis condition. These results elucidate important details for effective implementation of naturalistic vibrotactile feedback and demonstrate that our accessible audio-based approach could enhance user performance and experience during telerobotic assembly in construction and other application domains.
远程操作使工人能够安全地控制强大的建筑机械；然而，其主要依赖视觉反馈限制了操作员在接触僵硬或能见度差的情况下的效率，阻碍了其在预制建筑构件装配中的应用。可靠、经济且易于实施的触觉反馈可以填补这一感知差距，并促进机器人在建筑和其他应用领域的更广泛应用。因此，我们对广泛使用的商用音频设备进行了改造，创建了AiroTouch，这是一种自然主义的触觉反馈系统，它可以测量每个机器人工具所经历的振动，并使操作员能够实时感受到这种振动的缩放版本。通过优化系统现成的加速度计和音圈致动器的位置，实现了精确的触觉传输。进行了一项研究，以评估添加这种自然主义类型的振动触觉反馈如何在远程机器人装配过程中影响操作员。30名参与者使用双手灵巧远程操作系统（直观达芬奇Si）在三种随机排序的触觉反馈条件下构建一个小型刚性结构：无振动、单轴振动和三轴振动总和。结果表明，用户在对任务有了一些经验后，利用了自然主义触觉反馈的两个测试版本，在第二次试验中导致显著更低的振动和力。主观反应表明，触觉反馈增加了交互的真实感，并减少了感知的任务持续时间、任务难度和疲劳感。正如所假设的，手较大的用户以及在单轴条件下较小的感知振动会选择更高的触觉反馈增益。这些结果阐明了有效实施自然主义振动触觉反馈的重要细节，并表明我们基于音频的可访问方法可以提高建筑和其他应用领域远程机器人装配过程中的用户性能和体验。
