Visual Design for Predictive Display in Spatial Time-Delay Environments Considering Workload

Time delay is an inherent technical feature that cannot be eliminated during space robot teleoperation and can significantly impact operator workload. In this paper, based on predictive display technology, we investigate the change of operator workload during teleoperation by image prediction graphical interface and virtual reality prediction graphical interface. By constructing a virtual simulation experiment platform for a remote operation system, 20 participants were tested and analyzed in a fetch-place experiment; TAM, NASA-TLX, and AB-directed questionnaires were distributed for subjective measurements to understand the personal perceptions and visual preferences of the participants on their workloads, and to investigate the applicability of the predictive display technology to reduce the operator’s cognitive load. The results showed that the subjective and objective performance of the virtual reality predictive graphical interface (VR-PGI) was higher than that of the image predictive graphical interface (I-PGI) in the fetch-place operation scenario. It was found that the operator’s workload did not change significantly with the increase of spatial time delay in the predictive graphical interface, which proved the practicality of applying the predictive graphical interface to the spatial teleoperation scenario.