The following work (and associated results) has been performed throughout the project
- Interface development
o 4 DoF foot-based control interface was shown to be suited for trimanual applications. This work was published as
Yanpei Huang, Jonathan Eden, Lin Cao, Etienne Burdet, and Soo Jay Phee. "Tri-manipulation: An evaluation of human performance in 3-handed teleoperation." IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics 2, no. 4 (2020): 545-548.
o Motor unit recruitment order was investigated as a mechanism for SL command
Initial results suggest that human subjects lack sufficient voluntary control for real-time use. This work is intended to be submitted in eLife and currently available as
Mario Bräcklein, Jaime Ibáñez, Deren Yusuf Barsakcioglu, Jonathan Eden, Etienne Burdet, Carsten Mehring and Dario Farina. ." The control and training of single motor units in isometric tasks are constrained by a common synaptic input signal."
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/08/04/2021.08.03.454908(si apre in una nuova finestra)o Proprioceptive feedback encoding system developed and shown to be intuitive for human users
Evaluation of variance in frequency and amplitude for electrotactile feedback showed that subjects could best understand simultaneous modification of both factors. This work has been accepted to be presented in the 2021 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC).
The scheme has since been expanded to 3 DoF with a fully modular vibrotactile system.
- Understanding of human capability
o Ability of human subjects to adapt to delay studied
Was found that human subjects can adapt to smaller delays and recognise delay even for small delay values. This work was presented in the 2021 WorldHaptics conference and published as
Ivanova, Ekaterina, Jonathan Eden, Silei Zhu, Gerolamo Carboni, Aaron Yurkewich, and Etienne Burdet. "Short time delay does not hinder haptic communication benefits." IEEE Transactions on Haptics (2021).
o Impact of trimanual control versus bimanual control evaluated
Almost no loss of performance to extend from bimanual to trimanual when the actions of the hands are independent.
When hands are coupled there is a loss in performance, however, characteristics of hand movement such as smoothness remain unchanged
This was published as
Yanpei Huang, Jonathan Eden, Lin Cao, Etienne Burdet, and Soo Jay Phee. "Tri-manipulation: An evaluation of human performance in 3-handed teleoperation." IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics 2, no. 4 (2020): 545-548.
o Comparison of trimanual and dyadic performance across different kinds of tasks
Dyad performance is preferred and outperforms trimanual performance in all tasks when subjects have not trained in trimanual behaviours. This work was published as
Alessia Noccaro, Jonathan Eden, Giovani Di Pino, Domenico Formica, and Etienne Burdet. "Human performance in three-hands tasks." Scientific Reports 11, no. 1 (2021): 1-8.
After training, trimanual performance exceeds initial dyad and trimanual performance. Subjects still have a preference for working in a dyad. This work is accepted to be presented in the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC).
