The Design and Evaluation of Visual and Tactile Warnings in Support of Space Teleoperation

Space teleoperation is a very challenging task, in part due to the difficulty with maintaining awareness of the robotic arm’s configuration. Operators sometimes fail to notice undesirable arm configurations, such as joint limits or singularities, due to poor graphic user interface (GUI) designs and visual data overload. These failures can lead to hazards and unsafe conditions. The present study served to develop and comparatively evaluate the effectiveness of two approaches to supporting astronauts in monitoring the arm: 1) visual highlighting and information integration, and 2) tactile warnings. Performance measures and eye tracking data were collected and show that visual highlighting/integration and tactile warnings resulted in faster response times to, and successful avoidance of problematic arm configurations. The findings also highlight that additional support is needed for later stages of information processing, such as response selection. The findings from this research not only benefit space teleoperation but can inform the design of interfaces in other data-rich domains.