Project summary

This study investigates the impact of time delay on the performance of a teleoperated robot arm in 2D simulated deep sea welding tasks. The motivation stems from the inherent dangers of deep sea welding, including hazardous pressure changes that pose risks to human workers. The research focuses on a safer alternative to traditional methods by using a teleoperated robot for welding tasks. Participants in the study were required to follow a reference trajectory that mimics a typical welding motion, including challenges like sea wave perturbations. The experiment did not incorporate haptic feedback but introduced visual disturbances to simulate real-world conditions. The study involved 10 participants, with the time delay introduced by varying the queue size (1, 15, 30, 45, 60) in a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) system. Each trial was repeated five times to measure performance using metrics such as mean absolute error and task completion time. Results indicated that both the mean absolute error and task completion time increased with the time delay, suggesting a decline in performance efficiency due to latency. In the discussion, the authors suggest expanding the study to include more participants, identify outliers, and explore the effects of training, learning curves, and the transfer of skills. They also propose examining how the shape of the reference trajectory might be learned by participants and affect performance. The study concludes that time delay significantly impacts the performance of teleoperated robotic arms in simulated deep sea welding, with implications for the design and operation of such systems in real-world applications.

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