Dyadic Human-Human Interactions in Reaching Tasks: Fitts’ Law for Two

Abstract

In this paper we examine physical collaboration between two individuals using a dual-arm robot as a haptic interface. First, we design a haptic controller based on a virtual dynamic model of the robot arms. Then, we analyse dyadic human-human collaboration with a reaching task on a 2D plane, where the distance and size of the target changed randomly from a pool of nine reachable positions and sizes. Each subject performed the task individually and linked through the guided robot arms with a virtual model to perform the same task in collaboration. We evaluated both, individual and collaborative performances, based on Fitts’ law, which describes the relation between the speed of motion and its accuracy. The results show that the Fitts’ law applies to both, individual and collaborative tasks, with their performance improving when in collaboration.