A Gaze Signal Based Control Method for Supernumerary Robotic Limbs

Supernumerary Robotic Limbs (SRL) can expand the physical capabilities of humans in various tasks and working environments. To increase the operation efficiency of SRL, it is critical to acquire task and environmental information, which limits the controller. Previous research has proved that the gaze signal plays a vital role in human-robot shared manipulation. Therefore, this paper proposes a gaze information based controlling system for SRL. This system consists of the following modules: gaze information acquisition module for capturing gaze and environmental information, spacial transform module for transforming the position of gaze target to SRL working space, and SRL execution module for sending commands to SRL. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed system could control SRL based on the human gaze. The total mean absolute error between gaze position and actual execution position is limited to an average of 26 mm/m (2.6%). These results indicate that eye-gaze can be used to control SRL, which is beneficial for promoting the controlling efficiency of SRL and expanding application possibilities of SRL.