An evaluation of haptic cues on the tele-operator's perceptual awareness of multiple UAVs' environments

Abstract

The use of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is increasingly being incorporated into a wide range of teleoperation applications. To date, relevant research has largely been focused on the development of appropriate control schemes. In this paper, we extend previous research by investigating how control performance could be improved by providing the teleoperator with haptic feedback cues. First, we describe a control scheme that allows a teleoperator to manipulate the flight of multiple UAVs in a remote environment. Next, we present three designs of haptic cue feedback that could increase the teleoperator's environmental awareness of such a remote environment. These cues are based on the UAVs' i) velocity information, ii) proximity to obstacles, and iii) a combination of these two sources of information. Finally, we present an experimental evaluation of these haptic cue designs. Our evaluation is based on the teleoperator's perceptual sensitivity to the physical environment inhabited by the multiple UAVs. We conclude that a teleoperator's perceptual sensitivity is best served by haptic feedback cues that are based on the velocity information of multiple UAVs.

Haptic guided UAV for detection of radiation sources in outdoor environments

“…In [18] the authors suggested that the perceptual awareness of human operator when teleoperating a team of UAVs is best served by a haptic feedback based on UAVs velocity information rather than a cue based on obstacle avoidance. Sanna et al [17] investigated the use of a gestural user interface, without force feedback, based on the Microsoft Kinect to operate a quadrotor in GPS-denied environments.…”