Overcoming the Keyhole in Human-Robot Coordination: Simulation and Evaluation

Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems

Godzdanker

2008

This paper describes the design and evaluation of the "gestural joystick," a wearable 2-D pointing controller for mobile robots in hazardous environments that uses hand gestures. Hazardous environments, such as that of a collapsed building search, require operators to wear a significant amount of protective clothing. This protective clothing, which may include hard hats, suits, gloves, goggles, etc., reduces comfort, mobility, dexterity, load capacity, and ability to interact with conventional computer input devices. The gestural joystick, which is embedded in protective clothing, mitigates some of these impacts, but at the cost of lesser familiarity for the user and, therefore, potentially lesser performance. Effective performance metrics are required to evaluate this interface mechanism. Path tortuosity has been proposed as a performance metric for the evaluation of teleoperation of a robot, but has not been proven to be distinct from time-to-complete metrics. By injecting controlled uncertainty between the user and robot, we show, for the first time, that path tortuosity is a useful and distinct metric for the evaluation of robot teleoperation.

Section: Usability Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hri Performance Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The gestural joystick and the efficacy of the path tortuosity metric for human/robot interaction

Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems

Godzdanker

2008

“…3,5,7 The unique requirements of these tasks are far from the functions provided by a traditional input interface. Therefore, we suggested a special glove input interface to control a TerminatorBot for USAR.…”

Section: Glove Input Interfacementioning

confidence: 99%

Wearable joystick for gloves-on human/computer interaction

2006

SPIE Proceedings

In this paper, we present preliminary work on a novel wearable joystick for gloves-on human/computer interaction in hazardous environments. Interacting with traditional input devices can be clumsy and inconvenient for the operator in hazardous environments due to the bulkiness of multiple system components and troublesome wires. During a collapsed structure search, for example, protective clothing, uneven footing, and "'snag"' points in the environment can render traditional input devices impractical. Wearable computing has been studied by various researchers to increase the portability of devices and to improve the proprioceptive sense of the wearer's intentions. Specifically, glove-like input devices to recognize hand gestures have been developed for generalpurpose applications. But, regardless of their performance, prior gloves have been fragile and cumbersome to use in rough environments. In this paper, we present a new wearable joystick to remove the wires from a simple, two-degree of freedom glove interface. Thus, we develop a wearable joystick that is low cost, durable and robust, and wire-free at the glove. In order to evaluate the wearable joystick, we take into consideration two metrics during operator tests of a commercial robot: task completion time and path tortuosity. We employ fractal analysis to measure path tortuosity. Preliminary user test results are presented that compare the performance of both a wearable joystick and a traditional joystick.

“…The technical knowledge gap between a general rescuer and a robotics expert frequently became an obstacle to obtain an ultimate goal of user interactive devices. From this lesson, some scientists [1], [10] have begun to understand design parameters not previously considered. Recently, the scientists have focused on finding design parameters of interrelationship, collaboration, video feedback, and dialogue in human-robot systems [1], [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and User Testing of the Gestural Joystick for Gloves-On Hazardous Environments

Larson

RO-MAN 2007 - The 16th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication

et al. 2007

Abstract-For controlling robots in an urban search and rescue (USAR) application, we present a wearable joystick with improved sensing capability as well as Giant MagnetoResistance(GMR) sensor model for rare-earth magnet. Scientists have already begun to try to apply existing interactive devices to control USAR robots in a disaster. In a USAR task, the selection out of numerous interactive devices has to be carefully concerned. Some clumsy or irritating interactive devices can result in the burden of the carrying. We present a wearable joystick based on unencumbered mechanism. The features of the wearable joystick include easy and wire-free installation into regular gloves. We improved the hardware structure for sensor pad and alignment of magnets and applied band-typed sensor pad to completely wrap up wrist. This band-typed mechanism allows us to reliably obtain sensor data. However, in order to determine the performance of the new device, we perceived that we required an adequate evaluation method. We adopt movement time and Fractal dimension evaluation method to describe the degree of control path tortuosity. In addition, we present experimental results in both computer screen and real USAR robot test.