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Abstract

In our research group, we study new ways to interface humans and remote (multi-)robot systems in an effective way by adopting a "shared control" perspective. Indeed, it is clear that humans, on one side, have higher cognitive skills and superior situational awareness while robots, on the other side, possess higher versatility, reliability and motion accuracy. It is then interesting to study what is the best combination between level of autonomy expected in the robots, and best sensory feedback and control leverages needed by the human users to create an effective interaction. A good example that illustrates this philosophy is probably given by the telepresence/telerobotics scenarios: exploit remote robot(s) as an extension, or even an augmentation, of the humans' senses and actions. In this talk, we will review some of the research activities that our group is performing in this context. We will focus on the use of vestibular (self-motion) and/or force-feedback feedback in interfacing a human operator with remote UAVs. A particular attention will be given to the case of force-feedback teleoperation of multiple UAVs. Indeed, this situation imposes several challenges: since the human operator cannot directly control multiple remote agents, high level of autonomy must be demanded to the UAVs. Also, from a technical point of view, establishing a teleoperation channel between a single master and multiple remote slaves is nontrivial and requires special care. A discussion on longer-term research research directions will be presented at the end of the talk.