Preliminary Work on a Virtual Reality Interface for the Guidance of Underwater Robots

Abstract

The need for intervention in underwater environments has increased in recent years but there is still a long way to go before AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles) will be able to cope with really challenging missions. Nowadays, the solution adopted is mainly based on remote operated vehicle (ROV) technology. These ROVs are controlled from support vessels by using unnecessarily complex human–robot interfaces (HRI). Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the complexity of these systems to make them easier to use and to reduce the stress on the operator. In this paper, and as part of the TWIN roBOTs for the cooperative underwater intervention missions (TWINBOT) project, we present an HRI (Human-Robot Interface) module which includes virtual reality (VR) technology. In fact, this contribution is an improvement on a preliminary study in this field also carried out, by our laboratory. Hence, having made a concerted effort to improve usability, the HRI system designed for robot control tasks presented in this paper is substantially easier to use. In summary, reliability and feasibility of this HRI module have been demonstrated thanks to the usability tests, which include a very complete pilot study, and guarantee much more friendly and intuitive properties in the final HRI-developed module presented here.

Mixed Reality Human–Robot Interface With Adaptive Communications Congestion Control for the Teleoperation of Mobile Redundant Manipulators in Hazardous Environments

“…However, complex tasks require precise manipulation, localization and advanced teleoperation techniques. Some advancements in this field were presented in [9], where underwater robots cooperation and supervision with Virtual Reality system were presented.…”

“…Mixed Reality Interfaces are still in their early development and research phase, although there have been attempts to standardize them and their design process. As an example, an extensive study of Virtual Reality Human-Robot Interface for underwater robot operation was done in [9], where types of controllers, headsets, simulation engines or frameworks and computer components were tested and characterized. A link between the interface usability and ISO usability standards was established, which lays the foundation for more methodical approach of the Human-Robot Interface design which must meet specific requirements of performance and user satisfaction.…”

Multimodal Multi-User Mixed Reality Human–Robot Interface for Remote Operations in Hazardous Environments

“…In underwater robotics, significant efforts are made to have the robots ready for use in terms of mechatronics, software, and communication. It is necessary to use a realistic VR [15] and simulation tools [16] such as UWSIM [17] and Stone Fish [18], which allow testing the onboard robotic algorithms in controlled virtual scenarios. Also, it is usual to first test the robotic operations in a controlled water pool with the real robots [19] before bringing them to a more realistic scenario, such as the open sea [20].…”

Facial Emotion Recognition from an Unmanned Flying Social Robot for Home Care of Dependent People

“…Apart from this, to provide a solution that is accepted by the dependent person and can thus be of real use to them, it is also necessary to approach the design of the assistant UAV from the point of view of the assisted person [9,10]. Therefore, we have decided to design a virtual reality (VR) simulation platform that provides a safe and realistic environment to develop and test the different engineering solutions [11,12], and also allows us to conduct studies with potential end-users and people who know the problem of care for dependent people in order to adapt the design to their preferences.…”