User oriented assessment of vibration suppression by command shaping in a supernumerary wearable robotic arm
This addresses user comfort and satisfaction in human-robot interaction for wearable robotics, highlighting the importance of user-oriented metrics alongside traditional performance, but it is incremental as it applies an existing method to a specific domain.
The study tackled the problem of residual vibrations in Supernumerary Robotic Limbs (SRLs) by applying an input-shaping method, which increased user satisfaction and comfort by at least 9%, though 36% of users preferred unshaped commands due to potential higher cognitive load.
Supernumerary Robotic Limbs (SRLs) exhibit inherently compliant behavior due to the elasticity present at the intersection of human tissue and the robot. This compliance, can prominently influence the operation of some SRLs, depending on the application. In order to control the residual vibrations of SRLs, we have used an input-shaping method which is a computationally inexpensive approach. The effectiveness of this method in controlling the residual vibrations of a SRL has been proven using robustness analysis. User studies show that reducing the vibrations using input shaping directly increases the user satisfaction and comfort by at least 9%. It is also observed that 36% of the users preferred unshaped commands. We hypothesize that the shaped commands put a higher cognitive load on the user compared to unshaped commands. This shows that when dealing with human-robot interaction, user satisfaction becomes an equally important parameter as traditional performance criteria and should be taken into account while evaluating the success of any vibration-control method.