Eye-tracking-Driven Shared Control for Robotic Arms: Wizard of Oz Studies to Assess Design Choices

TL;DR

This paper explores eye-tracking-guided shared control for assistive robotic arms, using Wizard of Oz studies to evaluate user experience, identify design challenges, and inform future improvements without full automation implementation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel eye-tracking-based shared control design and employs Wizard of Oz experiments to rapidly assess user needs and design choices for assistive robotics.

Findings

User satisfaction improved with shared control approach

Identified key design challenges for accessibility

Gathered user feedback to guide future development

Abstract

Advances in eye-tracking control for assistive robotic arms provide intuitive interaction opportunities for people with physical disabilities. Shared control has gained interest in recent years by improving user satisfaction through partial automation of robot control. We present an eye-tracking-guided shared control design based on insights from state-of-the-art literature. A Wizard of Oz setup was used in which automation was simulated by an experimenter to evaluate the concept without requiring full implementation. This approach allowed for rapid exploration of user needs and expectations to inform future iterations. Two studies were conducted to assess user experience, identify design challenges, and find improvements to ensure usability and accessibility. The first study involved people with disabilities by providing a survey, and the second study used the Wizard of Oz design in person to gain technical insights, leading to a comprehensive picture of findings.