No abstract

We introduce a simple modification which can be applied to a commercial haptic device to convert it into a 2D haptic joystick. We also introduce a simplified haptic API designed to allow rapid development of sophisticated haptic feedback behaviors on our 2D joystick. Finally, we present a case study in which we demonstrate the implementation of a haptic effect for controlling an autonomous robot using our set up. The design files, software, and instructions needed to duplicate our set up are being made publicly available.

A significant amount of research has been conducted regarding the technical aspects of haptic feedback. However, the design of effective haptic feedback behaviors for controlling ground-based mobile robots is not yet well understood from a human-robot interaction perspective. Past research of haptic feedback behaviors for mobile robots has sometimes made use of control paradigms that do not appropriately map to teleoperation or supervision tasks. Furthermore, evaluation of haptic behaviors has not been systematic and often only demonstrates feasibility. As a result, comparing various techniques is difficult. In this article, we focus on how haptic control research could be improved in the domain of teleoperation and supervision of ground-based mobile robots through the introduction of a haptic evaluation toolkit.