Haptic Driving at ESA/ESTEC

Teleoperation
Challenge
Credits: HRI-Lab, ESA/ESTEC

Teleoperating rovers in unstructured environments (e.g., Lunar or Martian surface) is often challenging for the human operator.

These scenarios frequently lead to a high mental workload, erroneous perceptions of the environment, and faulty decision-making.

Our Approach

Implementing steering functionalities with a 7DoF device

Integrate proprioceptive cues for attitude awareness

Project Partners

ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

DLR, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany

Técnico Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

Institute for System and Robotics, Lisbon, Portugal

Interactive Technologies Institute, Lisbon, Portugal

Haptic Driving

Description:

This project implemented a novel haptic teleoperation interface to improve the interaction with remotely operated rovers in the domain of planetary exploration. With this approach, the operator can control both the robotic arm and the rover’s locomotion with a 7-DoF force feedback device (sigma.7) depending on the operation mode (manipulation or locomotion).

Moreover, while standard haptic devices for teleoperation only display one type of stimuli (e.g., contact forces), the implemented interface displays three distinct haptic stimuli:

  1. force (during manipulation tasks, e.g., rock-picking),
  2. proprioceptive (emulate the inclination of the rover while traversing rough terrains), and
  3. vibration convey traction losses during locomotion.
This work was developed in collaboration with the HRI-Lab, at ESA/ESTEC, The Netherlands.

Acknowledgments:

This project was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal), through PhD Grant PD/BD/150634/2020, FCT Projects UIDB/50009/2020, UIDB/04466/2020 and UIDP/04466/2020, “Aero.Next Portugal” project, and was part of the ESA TDE (Technology Development Element) 4000136200/0/0/0 WP2021.

Read more: