Human-Robot Interaction During Virtual Reality Mediated Teleoperation: How Environment Information Affects Spatial Task Performance and Operator Situation Awareness

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) mediated teleoperation is a relatively new field in robotics which means little is known about the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of environmental information presentation on Human-Robot Team (HRT) task performance and operator Situation Awareness (oSA). Method. The study consisted of two components. First, we developed a VR mediated teleoperation framework approachable for non-professional operators. Second, we performed an experiment to assess the effects of environment information presentation on HRT task performance and oSA. Under a within-subject design and pseudorandom sequence, twenty participants performed the experiment and answered an oSA questionnaire. Results. The results for the HRT task performance indicated that participants were significantly faster during the full information context. The accuracy results did not differ between information contexts. The study could not establish a significant difference of subjective oSA between contexts. Discussion. The results suggest better performance during full information contexts. For future VR mediated teleoperation design, we suggest incorporating context cues, either directly from the natural environment or artificial ones. This paper concludes that providing environmental context information can lead to better performance during VR mediated teleoperation and that it does not lead to different levels of oSA.