Research of Visual Haptics for Remote Machine Manipulation via Brain Signal Evaluation toward Robot Implementation

概要

Since the 1940s, remote machine systems have been cutting-edge research and development in the fields of space, military, and medicine. The spread of remote machine system technology in the space, military, and medical fields has already been rapid. In these advanced fields, the applications are limited, and not everyone can use them. In recent years, with the development of data communication technology and VR/AR technology, there is a growing expectation for remote machine systems in the consumer field with a scope of general work. In particular, it is necessary to put into practical use remote machine manipulation, which is difficult to benefit from automation by AI. For this purpose, it is important to develop a remote machine manipulation technology with a simple and intuitive human interface that can be easily used by anyone, and a remote human communication technology that enables communication with people near the remote machine. In this paper, we aim to contribute to the development of these two technologies, as well as to the practical application of a remote machine system in the consumer field with a scope of general work. Firstly, we work on the visual haptics technology to realize a simple and intuitive human interface. We propose a new visual haptics system that superimposes haptic information visually on the contact point. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness, a new method of brain signal analysis is established is applied for evaluation of operability on remote machine manipulation with proposed visual haptics in VR and real spaces. Through experiments with subjects, we found that our proposal not only enables a simple and intuitive human interface, but also allows the operator to focus on the attention space during remote manipulation. Secondly, we verify the implementation of the visual haptics on two types of real robots. The first robot is a humanoid robot designed. We have confirmed that the implementation method using LED and color tracking is natural in terms of superposition and images, and that it improves workability. The second robot is a newly proposed “Augmented Avatar”, which has the potential to be manufactured inexpensively while achieving both manipulation and communication. We implemented LED and simple CG representations, which has the advantage of visually communicating the robot's status to a person at a remote location. This robot was highly evaluated in the avatar world competition and made it to the final round. Finally, we conducted a basic study to improve three issues that were raised in the two implementation studies.

After 80 years, the remote machine system, which started in the 1940s, has been rapidly expanding from limited fields such as space, military, and medicine to various fields such as VR, MR, AR, and human augmentation. I am convinced that this research and development will not benefit a few countries or people, but will be sublimated into technology that promotes peace and happiness for the entire world.

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