Collision representation using vibrotactile cues to bimanual impact localization for mobile robot operations

Unnoticed collisions compromise the success of remote exploratory tasks with mobile robots. We propose a vibrotactile stimulation method to represent frontal collisions that is based on the way people perceive impacts on a bar held with both hands. We observed that to estimate the impact point in a bimanual impact localization task people relied on amplitude and duration differences of the impact vibrations delivered to their hands. Then, to apply these results, we obtained a psychophysical function that relates impact points and vibration parameters. Finally, we used a differential drive mobile robot equipped with a high speed tactile sensor on the front bumper to evaluate our method in a simplified teleoperation task. We observed that participants required less time to complete the task when vibrotactile feedback was available.