Dynamic Guiard: Haptic Feedback of Disturbance Effects and Relative Dynamic Motion in Robotics

Abstract

Teleoperation enables performing tasks that are too demanding, too dangerous or spatially difficult to reach for direct human operation. Depending on the application, teleoperated robots operate in environments that are subject to dynamic disturbances, such as the movement of organs in teleoperative surgery. In single robot arm operations, one hand, usually the non-dominant hand, is not used. By perceiving the disturbance as dynamic feedback, incorporating this non-dominant hand into the teleoperation loop might help to compensate for the disturbance. In this thesis, we therefore explore Guiard’s theory of bimanual control for dynamic disturbance to the non-dominant hand. In the course of the manuscript, we refer to this concept as Dynamic Guiard. A VR study with 24 participants was conducted where they had to perform hold and tracking tasks in a moving environment exposed to a variety of disturbances. The motion of the environment was displayed to the non-dominant hand as force feedback, position feeback and without feedback as control condition. The study results show great potential for Dynamic Guiard in improving the performance of teleoperation in disturbed environments. The analysis indicates, for instance, that force feedback to the non-dominant hand can help as an indicator of direction and velocity of the environment motion. A potential application could be to provide sudden gusts of wind on an aerial manipulator as a force reference directly to the non-dominant hand of the teleoperator to increase accuracy during the operation.