Haptic Guidance for Teleoperation: Optimizing Performance and User Experience.

Haptic guidance in teleoperation (e.g. of robotic systems) is a pioneering approach to successfully combine automation and human competencies. In the current user study, various forms of haptic guidance were evaluated in terms of user performance and experience. Twenty-six participants completed an obstacle avoidance task and a peg-in-hole task in a virtual environment using a seven DoF force feedback device. Three types of haptic guidance (translational, rotational, combination of both, i.e. 6 DoF) and three guidance forces and torques (stiffnesses) were compared. Moreover, a secondary task paradigm was utilized to explore the effects of additional cognitive load. The results show that haptic guidance significantly improves performance (i.e. completion times, collision forces). Best results were obtained when the guidance forces were set to a medium or high value. Additionally, feelings of control were significantly increased during higher cognitive load conditions when being supported by translational haptic guidance.