Téléopération | EPFL Graph Search

vignette|Un détonateur d'EEI contrôlé à distance, permettant de vérifier des engins potentiellement explosifs. La téléopération (ou opération à distance ) indique le contrôle d'un système ou d'une machine à distance. Son sens est similaire à celui de « télécommande », mais on le rencontre généralement dans les domaines de la recherche scientifique des techologies. Elle est fréquemment associée à la robotique et aux robots mobiles, mais peut être appliquée à toute une gamme de circonstances dans lesquelles un appareil ou une machine est actionné à distance par une personne. Histoire Le 19ème siècle a vu de nombreux inventeurs travailler sur des armes contrôlées à distance (les torpilles), comprenant des prototypes construits par John Louis Lay (1872), John Ericsson (1873), Victor von Scheliha (1873), et la première torpille guidée par câble, la torpille Brennan, brevetée par Louis Brennan en 1877. En 1898, Nikola Tesla fait la démonstration d'un bateau télécommandé avec un

Personalized Body-Machine Interfaces for Advanced Human-Robot Interaction

Matteo Macchini

Robotic systems are becoming more and more pervasive in modern industrial, scientific and personal activities through recent years and will play a fundamental role in the future society. Despite their increasing level of automation, teleoperation is still needed in many robotic applications. Human-Robot Interfaces (HRIs) are a central element in the diffusion of robots and are a crucial component to make them available to the use of most people. However, standard interfaces such as remote controllers still need time and extensive training to be proficiently mastered by users. Body-Machine Interfaces (BoMIs) represent a promising alternative to such devices as they leverage the innate ability of humans to finely control their movements. This thesis aims to provide new insights about humans' natural motor behaviors when interfacing with robots and to propose novel approaches for the implementation of HRIs based on body motion. The core contribution of this work is the design, realization and qualification of machine learning-based methods to translate the motion of a person into control inputs for a robot. The methods described here allowed naive users to effectively control real and simulated robots based on the processing of their body movements with a faster learning rate compared to classic interfaces. We extended our core algorithm to leverage knowledge about the natural organization of human motion resulting a more general method that was successfully applied for the control of a set of morphologically different machines. Through the implementation of an online adaptive functionality, we enabled users to modify their motor behaviour during teleoperation resulting in a lower perceived physical and cognitive workload and augmented performance. Human factors such as the sense of presence in virtual or distant environments, or the motor characteristics of distinct body areas are a key factor for advanced telerobotic applications. We studied the impact of the use of Virtual Reality for the control of non-anthropomorphic machines, and the effects of designing BoMIs based on different limbs opening to new knowledge about the effects of such factors in human-robot interaction. The design of a wearable haptic interface for drone operation showed the potential of augmenting their senses to perceive a distal environment through the sense of touch. Thanks to this novel design, nonexpert users were enabled to navigate drones through narrow passages with limited visibility, a task almost impossible to perform with standard interfaces.We believe that this thesis contributes to pave the way towards a deeper understanding of humans in human-robot interaction, as well as providing a new set of tools for the design of simple, intuitive interfaces with the goal of democratizing robotic teleoperation for the masses.

EPFL2021

Arm-wrist haptic sleeve for drone teleoperation

Dario Floreano, Matteo Macchini, Vivek Ramachandran

Teleoperators rely on both visual and haptic feedback to perform drone teleoperation tasks, such as obstacle avoidance. Haptic feedback becomes essential when visual feedback is compromised, either due to visual occlusions or poor depth perception. However, haptic interfaces, are often bulky because they require heavy actuators to provide force feedback. The bulkiness reduces user mobility and makes these interfaces unsuitable for prolonged use. Here, we propose a wearable haptic sleeve that encompasses the wrist and elbow joints of a human arm. The two joint rotations control the motion of a drone in a simulated environment along a horizontal plane. The sleeve is composed of modular electroadhesive clutches that block the joint movement when the drone is in the vicinity of an obstacle. The clutches are lightweight (27 g), require low power (~1 mW) to operate, and can be mounted on the user without affecting the user's mobility. A motor learning subject study is conducted to navigate a drone through a hole in a wall where the depth perception of visual feedback is compromised. The results of the study show that subjects trained with the wearable haptic sleeve learnt the drone obstacle avoidance task and retained the necessary motor skills after haptic training, compared to subjects who received only visual feedback and were unable to learn the motor task.

2021

The Impact of Virtual Reality and Viewpoints in Body Motion Based Drone Teleoperation

Dario Floreano, Manana Lortkipanidze, Matteo Macchini, Fabrizio Schiano

The operation of telerobotic systems can be a challenging task, requiring intuitive and efficient interfaces to enable inexperienced users to attain a high level of proficiency. Body-Machine Interfaces (BoMI) represent a promising alternative to standard control devices, such as joysticks, because they leverage intuitive body motion and gestures. It has been shown that the use of Virtual Reality (VR) and first-person view perspectives can increase the user's sense of presence in avatars. However, it is unclear if these beneficial effects occur also in the teleoperation of non-anthropomorphic robots that display motion patterns different from those of humans. Here we describe experimental results on teleoperation of a non-anthropomorphic drone showing that VR correlates with a higher sense of spatial presence, whereas viewpoints moving coherently with the robot are associated with a higher sense of embodiment. Furthermore, the experimental results show that spontaneous body motion patterns are affected by VR and viewpoint conditions in terms of variability, amplitude, and robot correlates, suggesting that the design of BoMIs for drone teleoperation must take into account the use of Virtual Reality and the choice of the viewpoint.

2021

Personalized Body-Machine Interfaces for Advanced Human-Robot Interaction

Matteo Macchini

EPFL2021