Towards an immersive user interface for waypoint navigation of a mobile robot
This work addresses navigation interfaces for mobile robot operators, offering an incremental improvement by adapting VR gaming methods to reduce delay sensitivity.
The paper tackled the problem of mobile robot navigation by proposing a head-mounted display interface for waypoint selection, using VR controllers to point at targets for autonomous navigation. Results from a user study with 37 participants showed that the waypoint control was preferred, learned quickly, and remained unaffected by communication delays in performance metrics, though VR sickness was noted as a concern.
In this paper, we investigate the utility of head-mounted display (HMD) interfaces for navigation of mobile robots. We focus on the selection of waypoint positions for the robot, whilst maintaining an egocentric view of the robot's environment. Inspired by virtual reality (VR) gaming, we propose a target selection method that uses the 6 degrees-of-freedom tracked controllers of a commercial VR headset. This allows an operator to point to the desired target position, in the vicinity of the robot, which the robot then autonomously navigates towards. A user study (37 participants) was conducted to examine the efficacy of this control strategy when compared to direct control, both with and without a communication delay. The results of the experiment showed that participants were able to learn how to use the novel system quickly, and the majority of participants reported a preference for waypoint control. Across all recorded metrics (task performance, operator workload and usability) the proposed waypoint control interface was not significantly affected by the communication delay, in contrast to direct control. The simulated experiment indicated that a real-world implementation of the proposed interface could be effective, but also highlighted the need to manage the negative effects of HMDs - particularly VR sickness.