Communicating Robot Goals via Haptic Feedback in Manipulation Tasks

EEG correlates of haptic feedback in a visuomotor tracking task

Slip feedback is an important cue in everyday object manipulation, but it is generally missing in tele-operation systems. To test the usefulness of simple, abstract types of feedback that warn the user about slip events, we tested the effect of auditory and haptic vibration feedback in a tele-operation task. Participants were asked to hold an object in a remote robot hand, and the force profiles that they exerted in response to slip events were measured. Haptic feedback did not significantly change the response characteristics, but auditory feedback did significantly improve response latency. A small but significant difference between haptic and auditory reaction times (60 ms) found in our control experiment might explain the difference between the feedback types.

This paper describes an experiment that studies the effect of basic haptic feedback in creating a sense of social interaction within a shared virtual environment (SVE). Although there have been a number of studies investigating the effect of haptic feedback on collaborative task performance, they do not address the effect it has in inducing social presence. The purpose of this experiment is to show that haptic feedback enhances the sense of social presence within a mediated environment. An experiment was carried out using a shared desktop based virtual environment where 20 remotely located couples who did not know one another had to solve a puzzle together. In 10 groups they had shared haptic communication through their hands, and in another group they did not. Hence the haptic feedback was not used for completing the task itself, but rather as a means of social interacting – communicating with the other participant. The results suggest that basic haptic feedback increases the sense of social presence within the shared VE.

This paper presents a human-scale virtual environment (VE) with haptic feedback along with two experiments performed in the context of product design. The user interacts with a virtual mock-up using a large-scale bimanual string-based haptic interface called SPIDAR (Space Interface Device for Artificial Reality). An original self-calibration method is proposed. A vibro-tactile glove was developed and integrated to the SPIDAR to provide tactile cues to the operator. The purpose of the first experiment was: (1) to examine the effect of tactile feedback in a task involving reach-and-touch of different parts of a digital mock-up, and (2) to investigate the use of sensory substitution in such tasks. The second experiment aimed to investigate the effect of visual and auditory feedback in a car-light maintenance task. Results of the first experiment indicate that the users could easily and quickly access and finely touch the different parts of the digital mock-up when sensory feedback (either visual, auditory, or tactile) was present. Results of the of the second experiment show that visual and auditory feedbacks improve average placement accuracy by about 54 % and 60% respectively compared to the open loop case

Assistive navigation systems for the blind commonly use speech to convey directions to their users. However, this is problematic for short range navigation systems that need to provide fine but diligent guidance in order to avoid obstacles. For this task, we have compared haptic and audio feedback systems under the NASA-TLX protocol to analyze the additional cognitive load that they place on users. Both systems are able to guide the users through a test obstacle course. However, for white cane users, auditory feedback results in a 22 times higher cognitive load than haptic feedback. This discrepancy in cognitive load was not found on blindfolded users, thus we argue against evaluating navigation systems solely with blindfolded users.

Haptic technologies and applications have received enormous attention in the last decade. The incorporation of haptic modality into multimedia applications adds excitement and enjoyment to an application. It also adds a more natural feel to multimedia applications, that otherwise would be limited to vision and audition, by engaging as well the user's sense of touch, giving a more intrinsic feel essential for ambient intelligent applications. However, the improvement of an application's Quality of Experience (QoE) by the addition of haptic feedback is still not completely understood. The research presented in this paper focuses on the effect of haptic feedback and what it potentially adds to the experience of the user as opposed to the traditional visual and auditory feedback. In essence, it investigates certain issues regarding stylus-based haptic education applications and haptic-enhanced entertainment videos. To this end, we used two haptic applications: the haptic handwriting learning tool to experiment with force feedback haptic interaction and the tactile YouTube application for tactile haptic feedback. In both applications, our analysis shows that the addition of haptic feedback will increase the QoE in the absence of fatigue or discomfort for this category of applications. This implies that the incorporation of haptic modality (both force feedback as well as tactile feedback) has positively contributed to the overall QoE for the users.

This study investigated the role of haptic feedback in precision peg insertion tasks conducted via teleoperation under varying visual resolution and communication latency conditions. Experiment 1 examined the combined effects of haptic feedback and the visual resolution, revealing that haptic feedback significantly reduces the maximum normal force and mental workload, while enhancing subjective operability, particularly in low-visual-resolution conditions. Experiment 2 evaluated the impact of communication latency, showing that the maximum normal force, operability, and mental workload are affected by increased latency. Notably, the maximum normal force is sensitive even to minimal latency (100 ms), whereas the mental workload and operability remain acceptable under lower-latency conditions. These findings underscore the importance of multi-metric evaluations, as different aspects of performance respond differently to latency. Overall, the results demonstrate the critical role of haptic feedback in enhancing task performance and the user experience in teleoperated precision tasks, offering valuable insights for the design and development of more effective and user-friendly teleoperation systems.

The sense of touch, being the earliest sensory system to develop in a human body [1], plays a critical part of our daily interaction with the environment. In order to successfully complete a task, many manipulation interactions require incorporating haptic feedback. However, manually designing a feedback mechanism can be extremely challenging. In this work, we consider manipulation tasks that need to incorporate tactile sensor feedback in order to modify a provided nominal plan. To incorporate partial observation, we present a new framework that models the task as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) and learns an appropriate representation of haptic feedback which can serve as the state for a POMDP model. The model, that is parametrized by deep recurrent neural networks, utilizes variational Bayes methods to optimize the approximate posterior. Finally, we build on deep Q-learning to be able to select the optimal action in each state without access to a simulator. We test our model on a PR2 robot for multiple tasks of turning a knob until it clicks.

Employing a 2x2 within-subjects design, forty-eight experienced drivers (28 male, 20 female) undertook repeated button selection and 'slider-bar' manipulation tasks, to compare a traditional touchscreen with a virtual mid-air gesture interface in a driving simulator. Both interfaces were tested with and without haptic feedback generated using ultrasound. Results show that combining gestures with mid-air haptic feedback was particularly promising, reducing the number of long glances and mean off-road glance time associated with the in-vehicle tasks. For slider-bar tasks in particular, gestures-with-haptics was also associated with the shortest interaction times, highest number of correct responses and least 'overshoots', and was favoured by participants. In contrast, for button-selection tasks, the touchscreen was most popular, enabling the highest accuracy and quickest responses, particularly when combined with haptic feedback to guide interactions, although this also increased visual demand. The study shows clear potential for gestures with mid-air ultrasonic haptic feedback in the automotive domain.

Increasing thigh extension with haptic feedback affects leg coordination in young and older adult walkers.

Haptic feedback is important to improve the operability of virtual objects. However, AR systems with haptic feedback are still not many. Moreover, users cannot perform tasks that need large workspaces in those systems because of physical constraints from haptic feedback devices. In this paper, we combined a wearable haptic device and a marker-less AR technology to develop an AR system in which users can perform activities that need large workspaces. Differences of the operability of virtual objects in an assembly task of large machines are examined to evaluate effects of the haptic feedback in this system. The result indicates that haptic feedback is effective and users can perform activities that need large space in this system.

Haptic feedback is of critical importance in surgical tasks. However, conventional surgical robots do not provide haptic feedback to surgeons during surgery. Thus, in this study, a combined tactile and kinesthetic feedback system was developed to provide haptic feedback to surgeons during robotic surgery. To assess haptic feasibility, the effects of two types of haptic feedback were examined empirically - kinesthetic and tactile feedback - to measure object-pulling force with a telesurgery robotics system at two desired pulling forces (1 N and 2 N). Participants answered a set of questionnaires after experiments. The experimental results reveal reductions in force error (39.1% and 40.9%) when using haptic feedback during 1 N and 2 N pulling tasks. Moreover, survey analyses show the effectiveness of the haptic feedback during teleoperation. The combined tactile and kinesthetic feedback of the master device in robotic surgery improves the surgeon's ability to control the interaction force applied to the tissue. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Stand-alone virtual environments (VEs) using haptic devices have proved useful for assembly/disassembly simulation of mechanical components. Nowadays, collaborative haptic virtual environments (CHVEs) are also emerging. A new peer-to-peer collaborative haptic assembly simulator (CHAS) has been developed whereby two users can simultaneously carry out assembly tasks using haptic devices. Two major challenges have been addressed: virtual scene synchronization (consistency) and the provision of a reliable and effective haptic feedback. A consistency-maintenance scheme has been designed to solve the challenge of achieving consistency. Results show that consistency is guaranteed. Furthermore, a force-smoothing algorithm has been developed which is shown to improve the quality of force feedback under adverse network conditions. A range of laboratory experiments and several real trials between Labein (Spain) and Queen's University Belfast (Northern Ireland) have verified that CHAS can provide an adequate haptic interaction when both users perform remote assemblies (assembly of one user's object with an object grasped by the other user). Moreover, when collisions between grasped objects occur (dependent collisions), the haptic feedback usually provides satisfactory haptic perception. Based on a qualitative study, it is shown that the haptic feedback obtained during remote assemblies with dependent collisions can continue to improve the sense of co-presence between users with regard to only visual feedback.

Sensory augmentation for subsea robot teleoperation

In this work, we propose haptic-based bilateral tele-operation for quad-rotor vehicles by using Internet communication infrastructure. The idea is to introduce shared autonomy to increase remote operation and manipulation capacity of the vehicle in uncertain flying environments. The design couples ground and remote sites by position and velocity signals of the master haptic and slave quad-rotor vehicle. Force reflection using haptic feedback provides human operator with a certain kinesthetic feeling of the interaction between vehicle and environment increasing the autonomy of the vehicle. The result will be an innovative human machine interface where the force feedback will complement the visual information during tele-operation surveillance tasks, enabling safe maneuvers. The experiments will be performed for indoor operation where this technique will achieve major impact.