Feedback System for Enhancing Human-Robot Interaction Performance in Construction Robots

Abstract

Many fatal incidents in the construction project occur during the earthmoving phase. Teleoperation has been a promising solution for such dangerous tasks since this method can remove humans from hazardous workplaces. Although humans are not on the jobsite for safety reasons, teleoperation requires human-in-the-loop automation, so humans need to robustly operate the construction robot at a distance. Operating equipment from a distance often reduces task performance and safety performance since spatial awareness of human operators is restricted compared to onboarding control. It is an important issue since the decisions and actions taken by operators directly affect the performance of construction robots. This study proposes the use of a feedback system for the teleoperation of construction robots to improve proximity sensing of risks and improve the human operator’s understanding of obstacles in the workplace where robots are used. The proposed teleoperation feedback system is validated with a human subject experiment in the virtual environment. This research will contribute to the body of knowledge on improving teleoperation, human operators’ spatial awareness, and human-robot interaction task performance.