Teleoperation of UAV using haptic feedback -

Abstract

Teleoperation or operation at a distance refers to the remote control that occurs between a human operator and a slave machine. The teleoperation process extends the presence of the operator and his ability to perform certain tasks. In this thesis, we study the variables that affect the performance of operators while teleoperating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). We propose a new approach to remotely control UAVs using haptic force feedback. The UAV is controlled using joystick’s velocity commands, and the haptic feedback is a repelling force proportional to the UAV’s velocity. Our proposed method that entails sensing the UAV velocity and commanding it using velocity based gestures proved to be an easier and more intuitive method for flying UAVs and accordingly, resulted in enhanced performance. Our method decreased the total flight time by 15.5percent, shortened the flight path by 14.5 percent, and reduced landing overshoot by 27.6percent, compared to the mode using position based commands. Besides that, it reduced the subjective workload by 20.5percent. Moreover, in this thesis we provide a thorough investigation of the different modes to teleoperate UAVs and we demonstrate how using the UAV velocity as force feedback can be more effective and intuitive. The added force did not increase the users’ subjective workload index but it improved the objective results.