Evaluating Feedback Modalities in a Mobile Robot for Telecare.

Different feedback modalities while using a mobile robot in a telecare task were compared. An experimental setup in which caregivers teleoperated a robot to perform several tasks remotely, outside the immediate environment of a patient, while they simultaneously managed other secondary tasks was designed. The robot provided feedback related to status information on the robot’s path and on tasks it performed. Two feedback modalities (textual and audio) and their combination were investigated to determine the most suitable for a remote operator in a simulated telecare task with secondary tasks. Additionally, the influence of the secondary task location on interaction was evaluated. Experiments with 40 participants with a teleoperated mobile robot revealed that the interaction was influenced mainly by the feedback modality, while the secondary task location had less influence. The feedback modality that combined textual and audio feedback yielded a better outcome as compared to the other single feedback modalities.