An assistive navigation paradigm using force feedback

As computer technology advances and facilitates an increased amount of autonomous sensing and control, the interface between the human and autonomous computer systems becomes increasingly important. This applies in particular in the realm of service robotics where robots with increasing levels of autonomy are constantly interacting with human users and where it is paramount to have an efficient way to convey user intentions and commands to the robot system and indicate robot control choices to the user in a "natural", intuitive way. This paper introduces technologies aimed at facilitating the integration of autonomous path planning capabilities with intuitive human control using a force-feedback interface not just as a tool for obstacle avoidance, but also as a tool for guiding the user to their goal. This is seen as a preferable alternative to completely autonomous performance, as users prefer to maintain some level of control. To this point, harmonic function path planning has been integrated to create a new, more robust force­ feedback paradigm. A force-feedback joystick has been used to communicate information from the user to the robot control system which uses this to infer and interpret the user's navigation intentions as well as from the harmonic function-based autonomous control system to the user to indicate the system's suggestions. To demonstrate and evaluate its capabilities this new paradigm has been implemented within the Microsoft Robotics Studio framework and tested in a simulated mobile system, with positive results.