Influence of varied human movement control on task performance and feeling of telepresence

One of the main objectives in telerobotics is the development of a telemanipulation system that allows a high task performance to be achieved by simultaneously providing a high degree of telepresence. Specific mechatronic design guidelines and appropriate control algorithms as well as augmented visual, auditory, and haptic feedback systems are typical approaches adopted in this context. This work aims at formulating new design guidelines by incorporating human factors in the development process and analyzing the effects of varied human movement control on task performance and on the feeling of telepresence. While it is well known that humans are able to coordinate and integrate multiple degrees of freedom (DOF), the focus of this work is on how humans utilize rotational degrees of freedom provided by a human-system interface and if and how varied human movement control affects task performance and the feeling of telepresence. For this analysis, a telemanipulation experiment with varying degrees of freedom has been conducted. The results indicate that providing the full range of movement, even though this range is not necessary to accomplish a task, has a beneficial effect on the feeling of telepresence and task performance in terms of measured interaction forces. Further, increasing visual depth cues provided to the human operator also had a positive effect.