Haptic Interface for UAV Teleoperation

In the teleoperation of an uninhabited aerial vehicle (UAV), the human operator is physically separated from the vehicle and lacks various multiple-sensory information such as sound, motions, and vibrations of the airframe. The operator is usually only provided with visual information, e.g., from camera images with limited resolution and field of view. All this leads to lower situation awareness, which in turn leads to reduced safety in teleoperation and high operator workload. The goal of this thesis is to increase the safety of UAV teleoperation and reduce operator workload. The approach taken is to apply haptic feedback, i.e., provide information regarding the UAV motion relative to the environmental constraints through the sense of forces on the control device. The research approach consists of the development of an artificial force field that maps environmental constraints to virtual forces that can be used for haptic feedback to the operator. Different implementations of haptic feedback is investigated. The virtual forces can be presented as external forces on the haptic control device (force feedback), as an increase in the spring constant of the control device (stiffness feedback), or a combination of both techniques (force-stiffness feedback). Additionally, effects of signal transmission time delays due to, for example, a satellite communication is investigated and a method, the so-called wave variable transformation, is provided to reduce the negative effects of time delays. Finally, a model of the neuromuscular system of the human arm is used in offline simulations for tuning of the haptic feedback. From the findings in this thesis, it can be concluded that, generally, the use of haptic feedback significantly increases the level of safety, at the cost, however, of higher operator physical control effort. When operators are more aware of the safety-benefit with haptic feedback, then they are willing to accept this higher physical load and the overall subjective workload will not increase. When time delays are present, haptic feedback can maintain the high level of safety using wave variables. Force-stiffness feedback has the potential to further increase the level of safety without higher operator workload levels, and it can therefore be considered to be the main candidate to further improve haptic feedback in UAV teleoperation. Finally, in an early stage of haptic feedback design it is not necessary to use a model of the neuromuscular system. However, for tuning and further optimization a neuromuscular model is an important tool.Control and SimulationAerospace Engineerin