Improved Tilt Feeling During Remote Control of Construction Machine by Tactile Sensation

• Published in: Journal of advanced computational intelligence and intelligent informatics Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 365 - 374
• Main Authors: Sakaniwa, Hidenori, Tajiri, Rikiya, Takano, Masaki, Miyaki, Mariko, Uwa, Yuya, Yoshimoto, Shunsuke, Yamamoto, Akio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tokyo Fuji Technology Press Co. Ltd 20.05.2021
• Subjects: Attitude (inclination); Cameras; Controllers; Object recognition; Pitch (inclination); Remote control; Rolling motion; Sensory stimulation; Touch; Video transmission
• DOI: 10.20965/jaciii.2021.p0365
• ISSN: 1343-0130

The aim of this work is to develop a technology that allows a remote operator of construction machine to feel the situations in a real working site to prevent fall accidents. In tele-operated maneuvering construction machine, it is difficult to recognize the tilt of the vehicle using only images from a camera mounted on the remote vehicle. Therefore, this study focuses on transmitting the feeling of the tilt using a controller with tactile stimulation. A gamepad-type tactile controller that performs palm pressurization is utilized to provide the tactile stimulus. The vehicle’s tilt is expressed by the palm pressure, which changes in corresponding to the vehicle’s pitch and roll angle. This study involves an experiment in which 10 subjects operate a vehicle remotely to climb on a slope. The subjects reported the tilt of the slope felt during the operation. The reported tilt is compared with those obtained by camera images only. The experiment results show that the accuracy of the recognized tilt was improved by 31.7% by utilizing a tactile stimulus when compared with the case involving operation using vision only. A subjective evaluation is performed using a five-point scale questionnaire. The results confirmed that the feeling of tilt, which is difficult to transmit using only video, was improved by 34%. This is an effective technology that transmits the feelings experienced in the remote field in real time. The proposed technology is thus expected to be useful for further development of teleworking technologies.