Experimental Validation of Operator Aids for High Speed Vehicle Teleoperation

Although fully autonomous robots continue to advance in ability, all points on the spectrum of cooperative interfaces between man and machine continue to have their place. We have developed a suite of operator assist technologies for a small (1 cubic meter volume) high speed robot that is intended to improve both speed and fidelity of control. These aids include fast stability control loops that run on the robot and graphical user interface enhancements that help the operator cope with lost peripheral vision, unstable video, and latency. After implementing the driving aids, we conducted an experiment where we evaluated the relative value of each from the perspective of their capacity to improve driving performance. Over a one week period, we tested 10 drivers in each of four driving configurations for three repetitions of a difficult test course. The results demonstrate that operators of all skill levels can benefit from the aids and that stabilized video and predictive displays are among the most valuable of the features we added.