Development and comparison studies of XR interfaces for path definition in remote welding scenarios

Rao, MCA and Raj, S and Shah, AK and Harshitha, BR and Talawar, NR and Sharma, VK and Sanjana, M and Vishwakarma, H and Biswas, P (2023) Development and comparison studies of XR interfaces for path definition in remote welding scenarios. In: Multimedia Tools and Applications .

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Abstract

The recent pandemic and associated hybrid work culture reignites the importance of extended reality (XR) technologies for remote collaboration across the world. As different ranges of automation are introduced in the industry with an increasing focus on digitalization, safety, and productivity, it is important to understand the context and physiological metrics of existing human operators. This paper describes the implementation of a virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) interface of a welding process and compares operators' performance using such technologies. Initially, MR and VR were compared with respect to a pointing task followed by a welding task involving trajectory definition and actual robotic arm movement. A plethora of parameters involving ocular data, Electroencephalography (EEG), hand movement, subjective opinion and quantitative measures were recorded and analyzed. The results of physiological parameters such as EEG based Task Load Index, Task Engagement Index, ocular fixation rate and average fixation duration indicated that the VR interaction involved higher levels of engagement, lower mental processing load and distinct visual processing mechanisms in the optical cortex compared to the MR interaction. Similar comparison trends observed in these parameters across both tasks confirmed the reproducibility of the experiment methodology and results. Results from the study can be used in terms of selecting rendering media for other immersive applications such as teleoperation, path planning and navigation scenarios in multiple domains such as manufacturing, robotics, healthcare, and education. The results were used to develop a multi-modal VR interface with a novel collision-based weld path definition method suitable for industrial deployment. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Multimedia Tools and Applications
Publisher:	Springer
Additional Information:	The copyright for this article belongs to Springer.
Keywords:	Accident prevention; Electroencephalography; Electrophysiology; Motion planning; Physiological models; Robot programming; Welding, Cognitive workloads; Comparison study; Development study; Human operator; Mixed reality; Remote collaboration; Remote telerobotic welding; Remote welding; Tele-robotics; User performance, Mixed reality
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Civil Engineering
Date Deposited:	04 Mar 2024 09:05
Last Modified:	04 Mar 2024 09:05
URI:	https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/84278

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