HARMONI: Haptic-Guided Assistance for Unified Robotic Tele-Manipulation and Tele-Navigation

Abstract: Shared control, which combines human expertise with autonomous assistance, is critical for effective teleoperation in complex environments. While recent advances in haptic-guided teleoperation have shown promise, they are often limited to simplified tasks involving 6- or 7-DoF manipulators and rely on separate control strategies for navigation and manipulation. This increases both cognitive load and operational overhead. In this paper, we present a unified tele-mobile manipulation framework that leverages haptic-guided shared control. The system integrates a 9-DoF follower mobile manipulator and a 7-DoF leader robotic arm, enabling seamless transitions between tele-navigation and tele-manipulation through real-time haptic feedback. A user study with 20 participants under real-world conditions demonstrates that our framework significantly improves task accuracy and efficiency without increasing cognitive load. These findings highlight the potential of haptic-guided shared control for enhancing operator performance in demanding teleoperation scenarios.