Industrial processes such as grinding, polishing, and precision assembly demand accurate force regulation and dexterous control. These operations are often repetitive and ergonomically challenging and, in some cases, can pose safety risks to human operators. This paper presents a teleoperation platform for Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) in force-sensitive robotic tasks, incorporating autonomous playback to support intuitive demonstration-based robot programming without complex manual coding. The proposed platform combines virtual reality (VR), optical tracking, and a vibrotactile operator tool within a ROS 2-based control architecture that interfaces with a UR10e industrial robot. A simulated Grinding task was utilized as a proof of concept. The VR environment offers a digital twin of the workspace, live video feedback, and scalable interaction with the workpiece for fine manipulation. Tool odometry generates velocity control commands for intuitive six Degree of Freedom (DoF) motion, while force feedback is conveyed through vibrotactile patterns and a color-coded visual overlay. Experimental validation demonstrated an end-to-end latency below 15 ms and positional errors under 5 mm. Repeatability tests yielded trajectory correlation coefficients (CC) above 0.8. A user study involving 17 participants was conducted to evaluate usability and overall user experience. The results showed high ratings for intuitiveness and system responsiveness, indicating that the proposed platform provides an effective and user-friendly framework for demonstration capture and autonomous replay of force-sensitive robotic operations.
Sadeghi et al. (Sun,) studied this question.