A mixed-initiative control system for an Aerial Service Vehicle supported by force feedback

We present an approach to mixed initiative control for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) where sliding autonomy is supported by mixed-initiative planning and haptic feedback. In the proposed framework, we assume that an autonomous system can plan and execute robotic tasks while a human operator can provide interventions when necessary receiving a force feedback. The haptic feedback is associated with the sensation about how the system is diverging from the planned operations. We tested the system at work in virtual and real environments considering simple navigation tasks. We compared the performance of human operators with or without the assistance of the force feedback. The collected results support the hypothesis that the proposed approach enables effective and intuitive mixed-initiative control.