Details

Summary

For human exploration of extra-terrestrial bodies, remotely teleoperated robotic
platforms will be an important. Teleoperation implies a cognitive
disconnect between the operator and the robot, since they are not physically
collocated. This often leads to an impairment in situational awareness. For
instance, events such as the robot not moving as expected, e.g. due to loss of
traction, often leads to operator confusion. In common teleoperation interfaces, this
problem is exacerbated by the overload of information on the visualization screen.

In the MEROP experiment this issue is addressed by evaluating the deployment of a novel
multimodal teleoperation interface. This interface aims at offloading of the visual channel using
a haptic interface to convey both the traction state of the robot and its attitude. For analysis of
the interface’s performance, the situational awareness and mental workload of the analog
astronauts, the time to complete the task, the number of collisions, etc., are recorded.
The experiment team is interested in collaborating with other teams, by providing expertise in
Human-Robot Interaction. They intend to adapt their teleoperation interface to another team's
mobile robot and perform their research within the constraints of that mobile robot.
The robotic platform for MEROP will be provided through the EXOSCOT experiment.

Experiment Data