Influence of spatial abilities on primary and secondary space telerobotics operator performance

Teleoperated manipulators have been invaluable tools during space missions. Arm operators work in pairs, with the primary operator controlling the arm and the secondary operator assisting by monitoring arm clearance and helping to avoid singularities. Individual ability to manipulate the arm and integrate camera views is believed to correlate with 3 subcomponents of spatial intelligence: spatial visualization (SV), mental rotation (MR) and perspective taking (PT). In particular, PT (the ability to imagine an object from another viewpoint) is thought to be important for integrating camera views. Two experiments were performed; one on primary operator performance, and one on secondary operator performance. In Experiment 1, 19 naive subjects were trained to manipulate a 6 degree of freedom (DOF) simulated arm using a pair of hand-controllers. Over 18 trials, the disparity between the arm's control frame and the cameras was varied between low (< 90 degrees) and high (> 90 degrees) conditions. We used the Cube Comparisons (CC) test to assess SV, the Vandenberg Mental Rotations Test (MRT) to assess MR, and the Purdue Spatial Visualization of Views Test (PSVT) and a Perspective Taking Ability (PTA) test to assess PT. Subjects with high PSVT scores moved the arm more directly to the target and were better at maintaining the required clearance between the arm and obstacles, even without a direct camera view. The subjects' performance degraded under the high disparity condition. In Experiment 2, 11 naive and 9 returning subjects were trained to manipulate the same simulated arm during 6 trials and then acted as a secondary operator observing an additional 32 trials.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Tomlinson, Zakiya Alexandra

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Charles M. Oman.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46798

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/46798