Towards Accessible Robot Control: Comparing Kinesthetic Teaching, SpaceMouse Teleoperation, and a Mixed Reality Interface

TL;DR

This study compares kinesthetic teaching, SpaceMouse teleoperation, and mixed reality interfaces to evaluate their effectiveness and usability for non-expert users controlling robots across complex tasks.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of three control interfaces, highlighting their performance limitations and user experience differences for non-expert users in robotic manipulation.

Findings

SpaceMouse and MR interfaces performed similarly in task completion.

Success rates declined with increasing task complexity.

User feedback emphasized physical demand and interface learnability.

Abstract

Teleoperation interfaces are essential tools for enabling human control of robotic systems. Although a wide range of interfaces has been developed, a persistent gap remains between the level of performance humans can achieve through these interfaces and the capabilities afforded by direct human-guided robot control. This gap is further exacerbated when users are inexperienced or unfamiliar with the robotic platform or control interface. In this work, we aim to better characterize this performance gap for non-expert users by comparing two teleoperation approaches, SpaceMouse teleoperation and a Mixed Reality (MR) interface, against kinesthetic teaching as a non-teleoperation baseline. All three approaches were evaluated in a comprehensive user study involving two robotic platforms and six complex manipulation tasks. Quantitative results show that the SpaceMouse and MR interfaces performed comparably, with significant differences in task completion observed for only two tasks, and success rates declining as task complexity increased. Qualitative analysis reflected these trends, highlighting differences in Physical Demand and identifying interface attributes that influence users' ability to perform, learn, and understand. This study quantifies the limitations of current teleoperation methods and incorporates subjective feedback from 25 participants. The results highlight the critical need to design and rigorously evaluate teleoperation systems for non-expert users, particularly in contexts where autonomous robots are deployed in personal or everyday environments, to ensure usability, efficiency, and accessibility.