Performance of Human Operators with Multimodal Collision Feedback in Teleoperation

Abstract

A variety of studies have proven the positive effects of haptic and visual force feedback on human performance in teleoperation (e.g. Weber & Eichberger, 2015). However, so far there is a lack of research explicitly examining such performance in collision scenarios. Two within-subjects experiments (N1 = 24, N2 = 48) were conducted to investigate the effects of haptic and visual force feedback, round-trip delay (RTD) and visibility of the environment on operator performance in such scenarios. Participants performed basic teleoperation tasks in a virtual environment using a force feedback joystick. Multifactorial Hierarchical Linear Model and ANOVA results indicate a positive effect of haptic force feedback on task completion time, applied force and reaction time in certain collision scenarios. Visual force feedback lead to an increase in reaction time and task completion time, but also decreased the applied force. Further results, theoretical interpretations and implications for practical use are discussed.