New interaction metaphors to control a hydraulic working machine's arm

In the last decade, teleoperated hydraulic machines have become a reality in post-disaster scenarios. Although Human Machine Interaction technologies had huge advances, these technologies are not always applied successfully, especially in fields in which automation or semi-automation have difficulties to make their way, i.e. unstructured scenarios. This paper aims to introduce new interaction metaphors to improve operation of modern teleoperated hydraulic machines. Three new prototypes of Human Machine Interfaces are presented: a wireless portable joystick, a wearable hand motion recognition system and two facing haptic interfaces. The interfaces are evaluated in a typical pick and place scenario, developed with the aid of Virtual Reality. The results are discussed from an ergonomic and task performance point of view. The wireless portable joystick and the haptic interface produced similar outcomes and they are both usable for the control, whereas the wearable hand motion control proved to be unsuitable the task.