Sensorimotor impairment and haptic support in microgravity

Abstract Future space missions envisage human operators teleoperating robotic systems from orbital spacecraft. A potential risk for such is the observation that sensorimotor performance deteriorates during spaceflight. This article describes an experiment on in two-dimensional manual tracking different stages of a mission. We investigated whether there are optimal haptic settings human-machine interface microgravity conditions. Two empirical studies using same task paradigm with force feedback joystick (no haptics, four spring stiffnesses, two motion dampings, three masses) presented this paper. (1) terrestrial control study ( $$N=20$$ N=20 subjects) five experimental sessions to explore learning effects and interactions settings. (2) $$N=3$$ xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">N=3 cosmonauts) pre-mission, mission board ISS (2, 4, 6 weeks space), post-mission session. Results provide evidence distorted proprioception significantly affects smoothness early phase adaptation microgravity, while magnitude effect was moderated by cosmonauts’ capabilities. Moreover, impairment can be compensated providing subtle cues. Specifically, low damping improved both directions (sagittal transverse plane) stiffness plane.