Vibrotactile information coding strategies for a body-worn vest to aid robot-human collaboration

This paper explores the use of a body-worn vibrotactile vest to convey real-time information from robot to operator. Vibrotactile communication could be useful in providing information without compropmising or loading a person's visual or auditory perception. This paper considers applications in Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) scenarios where a human working alongside a robot is likely to be operating in high cognitive load conditions. The focus is on understanding how best to convey information considering different vibrotactile information coding strategies to enhance scene understanding in scenarios where a robot might be operating remotely as a scout. In exploring information representation, this paper introduces Semantic Haptics, using shapes and patterns to represent certain events as if the skin was a screen, and shows how these lead to bettter learnability and interpreation accuracy.