An Investigation of the Tactile Communications Channel for Robotic Control

The impacts on performance of three different forms of communication (radio, chat, and tactile belt) were explored in the context of a small unmanned ground vehicle (SUGV) target identification task. The target identification task required a Commander with knowledge of target locations and access to a digital map displaying the current SUGV position and orientation to direct a Soldier remotely operating the SUGV to the targets using a finite set of eleven commands. The study revealed no evidence for a loss of soldier performance with the tactile belt communications channel. The finding suggests that the tactile use of haptic signals may be feasible, a potentially important finding for situations requiring covert communications.