Feedback strategies for shared control in dexterous telemanipulation

Shared control represents a middle ground between supervisory control and traditional bilateral control in which the remote system can exert control over some aspects of the task while the human operator maintains access to low-level forces and motions. Our telemanipulation system includes tactile, force and motion sensors that allow the slave to regulate grasp forces and impart rolling motions to a grasped object. We describe a set of experiments designed to determine whether shared control can improve the ability of an operator to handle objects delicately and to determine what combinations of force, visual and audio feedback provide the best level of performance and operator sense of presence. The results demonstrate the benefits of shared control and the need to choose carefully the types and methods of direct and indirect feedback.