Vibrotactile information coding strategies for a body-worn vest to aid robot-human collaboration

TL;DR

This study investigates vibrotactile coding strategies for a wearable vest to improve robot-human collaboration in high-stress scenarios, emphasizing semantic haptics for better interpretability.

Contribution

It introduces semantic haptics using shapes and patterns for conveying information, enhancing learnability and interpretation accuracy in vibrotactile communication.

Findings

Semantic haptics improves information interpretation.

Vibrotactile coding strategies enhance scene understanding.

The vest supports real-time robot-to-human communication.

Abstract

This paper explores the use of a body-worn vibrotactile vest to convey real-time information from robot to operator. Vibrotactile communication could be useful in providing information without compropmising or loading a person's visual or auditory perception. This paper considers applications in Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) scenarios where a human working alongside a robot is likely to be operating in high cognitive load conditions. The focus is on understanding how best to convey information considering different vibrotactile information coding strategies to enhance scene understanding in scenarios where a robot might be operating remotely as a scout. In exploring information representation, this paper introduces Semantic Haptics, using shapes and patterns to represent certain events as if the skin was a screen, and shows how these lead to bettter learnability and interpreation accuracy.