Tactile Feedback in a Tele-Operation Pick-and-Place Task Improves Perceived Workload.

Robotic tele-operation systems have vast potential in areas ranging from surgical robotics and underwater exploration to disposing of toxic, explosive and nuclear materials. While visual camera feeds for the human operator are typically available and well studied, tactile sensory information is often vital for successful and efficient manipulation. Previous studies have largely focused on execution time alone as measure of success of feedback methods on individual tasks. The present study complements this by a comparative analysis of vibration and visual feedback of tactile information across a range of manipulation tasks. Results show a significant reduction in perceived workload with the implementation of vibration feedback and an improvement of error rates for visual feedback. Contrary to expectation, we did not find a reduction in task completion time. The negative finding on completion time challenges the belief that the mere existence of task-relevant feedback aids efficient task completion. The reduced workload, however, clearly points out potential for enhancing performance on more difficult and prolonged tasks with highly skilled operators.