Evaluation of Display Methods for Teleoperation of Road Vehicles

Abstract

During teleoperation of road vehicles, live images from the vehicle are sent to an operator via a cellular connection, who then inputs his control demands. Time delays resulting from signal processing and transmission times can cause instabilities in the control loop and decrease driving performance. To mitigate the negative effects of time delays, predictive displays have long been used in the field of robotics. This paper presents the “Frame Prediction” method for drawing a predictive display for teleoperation of road vehicles. It also shows the results of an experiment in a simulated environment which compared the presented method to 1) driving under the influence of time delays and 2) a display method where the video images are modified as if there was no time delay present. Results revealed that the Frame Prediction method significantly increases driving performance and decreases operator workload for delayed systems. For some scenarios it even supersedes the driving performance without delays.