Digital Twin-Driven Mixed Reality Framework for Immersive Teleoperation With Haptic Rendering

Abstract

Teleoperation has widely contributed to many applications. Consequently, the design of intuitive and ergonomic control interfaces for teleoperation has become crucial. The rapid advancement of Mixed Reality (MR) has yielded tangible benefits in human-robot interaction. MR provides an immersive environment for interacting with robots, effectively reducing the mental and physical workload of operators during teleoperation. Additionally, the incorporation of haptic rendering, including kinaesthetic and tactile rendering, could further amplify the intuitiveness and efficiency of MR-based immersive teleoperation. In this study, we developed an immersive, bilateral teleoperation system, integrating Digital Twin-driven Mixed Reality (DTMR) manipulation with haptic rendering. This system comprises a commercial remote controller with a kinaesthetic rendering feature and a wearable cost-effective tactile rendering interface, called the Soft Pneumatic Tactile Array (SPTA). We carried out two user studies to assess the system's effectiveness, including a performance evaluation of key components within DTMR and a quantitative assessment of the newly developed SPTA. The results demonstrate an enhancement in both the human-robot interaction experience and teleoperation performance.