Effects of Force Feedback and Arm Compliance on Teleoperation for a Hygiene Task

Teleoperated assistive robots with compliant arms may be wellsuited to tasks that require contact with people and operation within human environments. However, little is known about the effects of force feedback and compliance on task performance. In this paper, we present a pilot study that we conducted to investigate the effects of force feedback and arm compliance on the performance of a simulated hygiene task. In this study, each subject (n=12) teleoperated a compliant arm to clean dry-erase marks off on a mannequin with or without force feedback, and with lower or higher stiffness settings for the robot’s arm. Under all four conditions, subjects successfully removed the dry-erase marks, but trials performed with stiffer settings were completed significantly faster. The presence of force feedback significantly reduced the mean contact force, although the trials took significantly longer.