Methods for evaluating and comparing the use of haptic feedback in human-robot interaction with ground-based mobile robots

A significant amount of research has been conducted regarding the technical aspects of haptic feedback. However, the design of effective haptic feedback behaviors for controlling ground-based mobile robots is not yet well understood from a human-robot interaction perspective. Past research of haptic feedback behaviors for mobile robots has sometimes made use of control paradigms that do not appropriately map to teleoperation or supervision tasks. Furthermore, evaluation of haptic behaviors has not been systematic and often only demonstrates feasibility. As a result, comparing various techniques is difficult. In this article, we focus on how haptic control research could be improved in the domain of teleoperation and supervision of ground-based mobile robots through the introduction of a haptic evaluation toolkit.