Human-Robot Interface for Teleoperated Robotized Planetary Sample Collection and Assembly

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel human-robot interface for teleoperated planetary sample collection, combining automated trajectory planning with haptic feedback to enhance precision, ease of use, and training efficiency in space exploration tasks.

Contribution

It introduces a new operational concept and interface design that extend teleoperation workspace and improve accuracy and usability for planetary sample collection.

Findings

Haptic feedback improves mission success rates.

System remains robust under communication delays.

Training time for new operators is reduced.

Abstract

As human space exploration evolves toward longer voyages farther from our home planet, in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) becomes increasingly important. Haptic teleoperations are one of the technologies by which such activities can be carried out remotely by humans, whose expertise is still necessary for complex activities. In order to perform precision tasks with effectiveness, the operator must experience ease of use and accuracy. The same features are demanded to reduce the complexity of the training procedures and the associated learning time for operators without a specific background in robotic teleoperations. Haptic teleoperation systems, that allow for a natural feeling of forces, need to cope with the trade-off between accurate movements and workspace extension. Clearly, both of them are required for typical ISRU tasks. In this work, we develop a new concept of operations and suitable human-robot interfaces to achieve sample collection and assembly with ease of use and accuracy. In the proposed operational concept, the teleoperation space is extended by executing automated trajectories, offline planned at the control station. In three different experimental scenarios, we validate the end-to-end system involving the control station and the robotic asset, by assessing the contribution of haptics to mission success, the system robustness to consistent delays, and the ease of training new operators.