Human-Robot Interaction Through Fingertip Haptic Devices for Cooperative Manipulation Tasks

Teleoperation of multi-robot systems, e.g. dual manipulators, in cooperative manipulation tasks requires haptic feedback of multi-contact interaction forces. Classical haptic devices restrict the workspace of the human operator and provide only one contact point. An alternative solution is to enable the operator to command the robot system via free-hand motions which extends the workspace of the human. In such a setting, a multi-contact haptic feedback may be provided to the human through multiple wearable haptic devices, e.g. fingertip devices that display forces on the human fingertips. In this paper we evaluate the benefit of using wearable haptic fingertip devices to interact with a bimanual robot setup in a pick-and-place manipulation task. We show that haptic feedback through wearable devices improves task performance compared to the base condition of no haptic feedback. Therefore, wearable haptic devices are a promising interface for guidance of multi-robot manipulation systems.