ABSTRACT
Traditional human-excavator interface rely mainly on visual modality and to some lesser extent on auditory modality to communicate between human and the excavator. However, increased operator workload has resulted in visual overload resulting operator fatigue and high error rate. To address these shortcomings, a haptic controlled human-excavator interface that incorporates visual, auditory and haptic cues as means of communication between human and excavator is proposed. However, the application of multiple sensing modalities in a human-excavator interface presents a set of issues and complications that need to be resolved before the full potential of multimodality in human-excavator system could be realized. In this work, an empirical study is conducted to investigate how visual, audio and haptic modalities could be used efficiently and effectively in human-excavator interface, potential conflicts that may arise from using multiple modalities and how the effects of these conflicts could be minimized. Results show that conflicts do exist between the visual and haptic modalities in the haptic control excavator interface, and that this interference does impact the operation of the haptic control excavator. Further, the results show that performance of novice operators were impacted more by the interference between the sensory cues than the performance of expert operators.
