Though most of us have a comfortable relationship with our mouse and keyboard, recent developments have allowed for an innovative range of interaction between people and technology. Wang and Fey designed a study to explore the interaction between participants and the “human-in-the-loop” (HITL) robot interface—a touch sensitive robot control system that can register user movement on a computer.
Researchers identified that most robotic interfaces are evaluated subjectively and rated on their ease of use for completing tasks. Their goal was to determine a more objective approach to measuring interaction. The premise of their study was to identify physiological signs tied to successful and problematic human-robot interactions, and then create a method of assessment of their findings.
The researchers observed participants as they used the touch sensitive HITL robotic devices to complete tasks, specifically measuring participant’s physical effort, mental cognition, and kinematics of motion. Participants used the robotic interface to navigate different locations in a virtual reality environment. To create conditions of varying difficulty, distance between target areas in the environment were manipulated. A B-Alert X10 device with AcqKnowledge® software from BIOPAC collected wireless EEG signals of participants and was used to compare participant reading before and during the task.
In their conclusion, researchers were able to identify a relationship between the amount of time spent completing tasks to an index of user difficulty. Motion kinematics were the most reliable parameter for measuring difficulty with HITL interaction. The findings have allowed for a new model of assessment for human-robot interfaces. Researchers identified that though their findings came from a specific task, their model for interaction assessment can be used in a variety of contexts.
