Motor Interference of Incongruent Hand Motions in HRI Depends on Movement Velocity

Abstract

This paper presents results from a study on the dependency of motor interference (in terms of deviation of human hand movement from task direction) on movement velocity during simultaneous robot arm movement. Test participants and a robot arm perform synchronous vertical and horizontal movements in all combinations, while robot velocity is varied in three levels. Significant results show, that motor interference decreases in case of fast movement velocity and increases for slow and medium velocities. These findings can contribute to refined motor interference modeling in order to predict the extent of motor interference during more general movements with varying velocity profiles and this way reduce movement uncertainty and increase safety.