Camera Frame Misalignment in a Teleoperated Eye-in-Hand Robot: Effects and a Simple Correction Method

TL;DR

This paper systematically investigates the effects of camera frame misalignment in eye-in-hand teleoperation systems and introduces a simple correction method that significantly improves task performance and reduces operator stress.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of misalignment effects in eye-in-hand systems and proposes an effective correction method to enhance teleoperation accuracy and efficiency.

Findings

Misalignment in orthogonal direction is harder to compensate (~40s) than in opposite direction (~20s).

Correction improves task completion time by approximately 40%.

Operators experience reduced difficulty, unsteadiness, and stress with correction enabled.

Abstract

Misalignment between the camera frame and the operator frame is commonly seen in a teleoperated system and usually degrades the operation performance. The effects of such misalignment have not been fully investigated for eye-in-hand systems - systems that have the camera (eye) mounted to the end-effector (hand) to gain compactness in confined spaces such as in endoscopic surgery. This paper provides a systematic study on the effects of the camera frame misalignment in a teleoperated eye-in-hand robot and proposes a simple correction method in the view display. A simulation is designed to compare the effects of the misalignment under different conditions. Users are asked to move a rigid body from its initial position to the specified target position via teleoperation, with different levels of misalignment simulated. It is found that misalignment between the input motion and the output view is much more difficult to compensate by the operators when it is in the orthogonal direction (~40s) compared with the opposite direction (~20s). An experiment on a real concentric tube robot with an eye-in-hand configuration is also conducted. Users are asked to telemanipulate the robot to complete a pick-and-place task. Results show that with the correction enabled, there is a significant improvement in the operation performance in terms of completion time (mean 40.6%, median 38.6%), trajectory length (mean 34.3%, median 28.1%), difficulty (50.5%), unsteadiness (49.4%), and mental stress (60.9%).