UPI Teleoperation System
Application


Test runs show how teleoperation parameters affect driver performance

The United States Army has set an ambitious goal of having one third of its ground vehicles be unmanned by the year 2015. Recent successes in deploying scouting and bomb disposal robots have demonstrated practical uses for unmanned systems and encouraged their development and deployment for a wider range of tactical missions.

However, the unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) that have been deployed so far require teleoperation (remote operation by a human being). Despite recent developments in autonomy, autonomous vehicles still require human intervention. Effective teleoperation is therefore crucial to their successful use.

For teleoperation to work, operators need situational awareness of the UGV’s surroundings. Once an operator takes active remote control of a UGV, it can take minutes to assess the vehicle’s environment and decide what to do next. Providing good visual and physical feedback to the operator improves the operator’s situational awareness and allows the UGV to be operated more effectively.

NREC’s immersive teleoperation system makes operators feel as if they’re actually riding in the vehicle. Field tests of the teleoperation system found tradeoffs between operator performance and parameters like bandwidth, latency, field of view, and video frame rate. Identifying key parameters for successful teleoperation allows the operator to make the most efficient use of the limited data bandwidth between the vehicle and the operator control station.