Development of spatial awareness and operation skills in a remote robot laboratory

This paper explores an approach which engages first-year industrial engineering students in teleoperating robot manipulators and how this practice can contribute to the development of their spatial awareness. We analyzed the spatial constraints of teleoperation such as exocentric viewing, limited viewshed, and delayed visual feedback, and used them for training students. A robot operation workshop has been conducted in two versions of learning practice: one in direct operation of robots in the lab, and the other in remote control of the robots from the computer class. Students' reflections on the workshop contribution to their spatial awareness, exposure to industrial robotics, and interest to study it were compared. As found, evaluations of the students who teleoperated robots were significantly higher for all three contribution factors. For students of the teleoperation group the major difficulty was in exocentric viewing, but providing the opportunity to manipulate physical objects with hands, significantly reduced the difficulty.