GMVC: Grip-Force-Modulated Adaptive Velocity Mapping for Intuitive Robot Teleoperation

Fei, Haolin and Wang, Ziwei and Guo, Liucheng and Xue, Tao and Williams, Darren (2025) GMVC: Grip-Force-Modulated Adaptive Velocity Mapping for Intuitive Robot Teleoperation. In: IECON 2025 – 51st Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society :. UNSPECIFIED. ISBN 9798331596828

Abstract

Grip control interfaces impose a cognitive load on novices in teleoperation tasks. This paper introduces the Grip-Modulated Velocity Control (GMVC) framework, a novel teleoperation paradigm leveraging grip force modulation to control robot velocity intuitively. GMVC enables operators to modulate grip intensity to regulate robotic motion velocity, establishing a mapping that aligns with humans’ natural sensorimotor expectations. The framework features two variants: basic GMVC and enhanced GMVC with grip memory and context adaptation capabilities. Experimental evaluation across virtual path following, point navigation, and obstacle avoidance demonstrated that while performance was comparable for path following tasks, GMVC significantly reduced completion times for point navigation (39.7% improvement) and obstacle avoidance tasks (28.3% improvement). Subjective measures indicated a strong preference for grip-based control in tasks requiring transitions between coarse and fine movements. Real-world robot experiment through a plug-in-hole task shows that enhanced GMVC reduces completion time by 17.4% compared to conventional joystick control.