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Teleoperated mobile robots are beginning to be used for a variety of tasks that require movement in close quarters in the
vicinity of moving and parked vehicles, buildings and other man-made structures, and the target object for inspection or
manipulation. The robots must be close enough to deploy short-range sensors and manipulators, and must be able to
maneuver without potentially damaging collisions. Teleoperation is fatiguing and stressful even without the requirement
for close positioning. In cooperation with the TARDEC Robotic Mobility Laboratory (TRML), we are investigating
approaches to reduce workload and improve performance through augmented teleoperation.
Human-robot interfaces for teleoperation commonly provide two degrees-of-freedom (DoF) motion control with visual
feedback from an on-board egocentric camera and no supplemental distance or orientation cueing. This paper reports on
the results of preliminary experiments to assess the effects on man-machine task performance of several options for
augmented teleoperation: (a) 3 DoF motion control (rotation and omni-directional translation) versus 2 DoF control
(rotation and forward/reverse motion), (b) on-board egocentric camera versus fixed-position overwatch camera versus
dual egocentric-and-overwatch cameras, and (c) presence or absence of distance and orientation visual cueing. We
examined three dimensions of performance: completion time, spatial accuracy, and workspace area. We investigated
effects on the expected completion time and on the variance in completion time. Spatial accuracy had three components:
orientation, aimpoint, and distance. We collected performance under different task conditions: (a) three position-and-orientation
tolerance or accuracy objectives, and (b) four travel distances between successive inspection points. We
collected data from three subjects. We analyzed the main effects and conditional interaction effects among the
teleoperation options and task conditions. We were able to draw some definitive conclusions regarding the relative
performance of design alternatives, and conditions under which their performance degraded. We made some
observations regarding operator behaviors, which suggested some potential augmented teleoperation enhancements.
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