A-RIFT: Visual Substitution of Force Feedback for a Zero-Cost Interface in Telemanipulation

We present an accessible robot interface for telemanipulation (A-RIFT), which preserves the haptic channel partially in a zero-additional-cost interface by visual substitution of force feedback (VSFF). This work explores a gap in the literature, resulting from the focus on performance improvements i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) pp. 3926 - 3933
Main Authors Moortgat-Pick, Alexander, So, Peter, Sack, Michael J, Cunningham, Emma G, Hughes, Benjamin P, Adamczyk, Anna, Sarabakha, Andriy, Takayama, Leila, Haddadin, Sami
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 23.10.2022
Subjects
Costs
Force feedback
Haptic interfaces
Tactile Internet
Task analysis
Training
Visualization
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Summary:We present an accessible robot interface for telemanipulation (A-RIFT), which preserves the haptic channel partially in a zero-additional-cost interface by visual substitution of force feedback (VSFF). This work explores a gap in the literature, resulting from the focus on performance improvements in telerobotics at increasing interface costs. Unlike most telemanipulation interfaces for high-degree-of-freedom robotic systems, this one requires minimal training and can be run in a web browser under high latency conditions, using an Internet connected computer with the user's own mouse and keyboard. To evaluate the performance of the system, we ran a controlled user study (N=12) to test how different distances (local vs. remote) and VSFF (on vs. off) affect the system's usability. As expected, participants in remote conditions performed worse than those in closer proximity. Despite several participants claiming that the visual display of force feedback did not help them, our analysis of their task performance showed that operators in remote condition actually performed statistically significantly better with the visual force feedback display than without it. These results indicate a promising new interface design direction for low-cost telemanipulation.
ISSN:2153-0866
DOI:10.1109/IROS47612.2022.9981365