TeleGaze: Teleoperation through eye gaze

Most teleoperation tasks involve controlling as well as monitoring from a remote location. This requires the eyes of the operator to be engaged in the monitoring task and the hands in the controlling task for the whole duration of the operation. Since the eyes are involved in the monitoring task anyway, inputs from their gaze can be used to aid in the controlling task to free the hands of the operator from this task. However, the challenge here lies in distinguishing between the inputs that should be used for monitoring and those that should be used for controlling. To address this challenge, this paper presents a novel means of developing a teleoperation interface through eye gaze. The interface developed in this work, which is called the TeleGaze interface for short, enables the operator to monitor as well as control a mobile robot remotely through the use of the eyes only. The TeleGaze interface is developed out of two different designs based on user satisfaction. A task oriented evaluation for the TeleGaze interface is conducted in comparison with other interaction modalities. The evaluation shows promising results towards TeleGaze as an aid in human-robot interaction.