Prefatory study of the effects of exploration dynamics on stiffness perception*

The utility of telerobotic systems is driven in large part by the quality of feedback they provide to the operator. While the dynamic interaction between a robot and the environment can often be sensed or modeled, the dynamic coupling at the human-robot interface is often overlooked. Improving dexterous manipulation through telerobots will require careful consideration of human haptic perception as it relates to human exploration dynamics at the telerobotic interface. In this manuscript, we use exploration velocity as a means of controlling the operator’s exploration dynamics, and present results from two stiffness discrimination experiments designed to investigate the effects of exploration velocity on stiffness perception. The results indicate that stiffness percepts vary differently for different exploration velocities on an individual level, however, no consistent trends were found across all participants. These results suggest that exploration dynamics can affect the quality of haptic interactions through telerobotic interfaces, and also reflect the need to study the underlying mechanisms that cause our perception to vary with our choice of exploration strategy.