University of Houston
Department of Computer Science

In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Lorraine Williams

will defend her dissertation

Bisensory Force Feedback in Robot Teleoperations

Abstract

Effectively controlling a robot remotely to perform a desired task - teleoperation - offers benefits in improving human safety, reducing workload, providing location accessibility, and in convenience. Because these benefits become more evident under the extreme environmental conditions of space operations, NASA Johnson Space Center has been actively researching the usage of and improvements in teleoperations, and has supported the development of advanced techniques. Teleoperator task performance has been shown to improve with the addition of sensory feedback. In particular, providing force-feedback to a human operator, has been shown to decrease task completion times and lessen potentially damaging contact forces between the slave robot and its target work environment. We summarize the design, development, and usage of a human interface system built to provide position control as well as both kinesthetic and visual six-axis force-feedback displays to a human teleoperator of a remote manipulator.

The system developed is utilized as an experimentation platform evaluating the merit of providing force feedback through both kinesthetic (muscular position and force) and substituted visual displays on a typical space operations task utilizing an anthropomorphic slave robot called .Robonaut.. Teleoperator performance of a drill task is measured under four different display scenarios: no force display, visual force display, kinesthetic, and both. Task completion times and contact forces are measured, and subjective questionnaire responses collected. Our results indicate lower maximum force/torque, lower cumulative force/torque, and a greater task consistency with any type of feedback, with no significant differences in task completion time.

Date: Friday, November 9, 2001

Time: 1:00 pm

Place: 550-PGH

Faculty, students, and the general public are invited.

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Ernst L. Leiss