Human Operation Augmentation through Wearable Robotic Limb Integrated with Mixed Reality Device

Abstract

Mixed reality technology can give humans an intuitive visual experience, and combined with the multi-source information of the human body, it can provide a comfortable human–robot interaction experience. This paper applies a mixed reality device (Hololens2) to provide interactive communication between the wearer and the wearable robotic limb (supernumerary robotic limb, SRL). Hololens2 can obtain human body information, including eye gaze, hand gestures, voice input, etc. It can also provide feedback information to the wearer through augmented reality and audio output, which is the communication bridge needed in human–robot interaction. Implementing a wearable robotic arm integrated with HoloLens2 is proposed to augment the wearer’s capabilities. Taking two typical practical tasks of cable installation and electrical connector soldering in aircraft manufacturing as examples, the task models and interaction scheme are designed. Finally, human augmentation is evaluated in terms of task completion time statistics.

Keywords

• human augmentation
• wearable robotic limb
• supernumerary robotic limb
• mixed reality
• human–robot interaction