Towards Optimal Human-Robot Interface Design Applied to Underwater Robotics Teleoperation

TL;DR

This paper proposes an optimal human-robot interface framework for underwater vehicle teleoperation, emphasizing user comfort, efficiency, and natural control translation, demonstrated through a head-mounted display study and numerical experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to underwater teleoperation that translates human body movements into vehicle commands, reducing environmental risks and improving intuitiveness.

Findings

Optimal translation aligns with user expectations

Head-mounted display enables effective control in simulations

Numerical results support the naturalness of the proposed method

Abstract

Efficient and intuitive Human-Robot interfaces are crucial for expanding the user base of operators and enabling new applications in critical areas such as precision agriculture, automated construction, rehabilitation, and environmental monitoring. In this paper, we investigate the design of human-robot interfaces for the teleoperation of dynamical systems. The proposed framework seeks to find an optimal interface that complies with key concepts such as user comfort, efficiency, continuity, and consistency. As a proof-of-concept, we introduce an innovative approach to teleoperating underwater vehicles, allowing the translation between human body movements into vehicle control commands. This method eliminates the need for divers to work in harsh underwater environments while taking into account comfort and communication constraints. We conducted a study with human subjects using a head-mounted display attached to a smartphone to control a simulated ROV. Also, numerical experiments have demonstrated that the optimal translation is often the most intuitive and natural one, aligning with users' expectations.