The Effect of Control Device on Performance in a Robotic Arm Task

Abstract

Task operators are using robotic arms more often and in more settings than ever before. However, little is known about what type of control device, zero- or first-order control, will result in the best performance in a teleoperation task. The goal of this research was to investigate the difference in task performance using two different control devices: a joystick controller and a gesture controller. In the experiment, thirty-four undergraduate participants manipulated switches and knobs on a task board with a robotic arm using Xbox and Leap controllers. Performance was reflected by time spent on each task and task completion rate. Data were analyzed using a 2 (control device) x 4 (actuator type) repeated measures ANOVA. The results indicate significant performance differences when manipulating two actuator types, vertical continuous and rotary. We concluded that performance with the Leap controller was superior for some tasks and performance with the Xbox controller was superior for others, particularly the rotary task.

Effects of Transparency and Controller Type on Performance in A Multi-Layer Display

“…Recently, developments such as gesture control, speech recognition, and haptic feedback have been considered to improve performance. Gesture control is difficult to learn and execute compared to Xbox or mouse control (Long & Bliss, 2016;Rogers et al, 2015). Haptic feedback can be implemented into almost any controller, and has been successfully implemented in joystick controllers to improve performance (Gunn, Muller, & Datta, 2009;Lee & Kim, 2008).…”