Robots are already making life easier in many areas, whether as mopping or vacuuming aids or as moving machines that bring food to the table in restaurants. In addition, research is also being conducted at TUM to develop robots for automated use in elderly care in the future. Geriatronic technologies aim to provide assistance for caregivers, rehabilitation support, medical telepresence and personalized diagnostics.
The research of Prof. Dr. David Franklin, Head of the Associate Professorship of Neuromuscular Diagnostics, is also based on this approach. Together with his team, he is investigating the physiological and computational basis of human neuromuscular movement control.
In a new study, the Professorship has now investigated the influence of haptic feedback on the interaction between humans and robots. The results were published under the title "Follow the Force: Haptic Communication Enhances Coordination in Physical Human-Robot Interaction When Humans are Followers" in the journal "IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters". The journal has an impact factor of 5.2.
The Associate Professorship of Neuromuscular Diagnostics has developed an experiment in which participants had to work closely with various such artificial agents to control a board from both sides and roll a ball on it to the target position. Two different types of artificial agents were used, which differed in the degree of their leadership qualities. The aim was to analyze how humans adapt to different behaviors of robots and how haptic communication affects coordination when the human subject takes on either the role of leader or follower.
"This study was a part of a series that aimed at investigating how humans physically collaborate with another humans or robots on tasks that require high level of coordination," explains Yiming Liu, PhD student at the Associate Professorship of Neuromuscular Diagnostics and first author of the publication. "We are particularly interested in understanding the role of haptic communication during physical collaboration.”
“The results indicate that individuals can quickly adapt to the robots and take on a leader or follower role depending on the activity level of the artificial agent," says Liu.
It was also shown that the haptic feedback promoted a balanced distribution of responsibilities between humans and robots. When haptic feedback was missing, the difference between leader and follower roles became more evident. With the help of haptic communication, coordination improved in particular when the human subjects took on the role of follower. In contrast, no improvement was observed when the participants acted as leaders.
"Our study helps to gain a better understanding of the adaptation between robots and humans," explains Prof. Franklin. "It may be possible to optimize robots' abilities to anticipate human adaptation to different robot behaviors based on our results. In particular, we were able to show that haptic feedback contains information that can facilitate coordination between humans and robots. This may allow robots to better understand and cooperate with human guidance to increase the transparency of collaboration."
To the publication „Follow the Force: Haptic Communication Enhances Coordination in Physical Human-Robot Interaction When Humans are Followers“ in the journal “IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters"
To the homepage of the Associate Professorship of Neuromuscular Diagnostics
Contact:
Prof. Dr. David Franklin
Associate Professorship of Neuromuscular Diagnostics
Georg-Brauchle Ring 60/62
80992 München
phone: 089 289 24583
e-mail: David.Franklin(at)tum.de
Yiming Liu
Associate Professorship of Neuromuscular Diagnostics
Georg-Brauchle Ring 60/62
80992 München
e-mail: Yiming.Liu(at)tum.de
Text: Romy Schwaiger
Photos: "IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters"/private