Perception Effects in Ground Robotic Tele-Operation

The focus of this article is perception affects and enhancement during ground robotic tele-operation. Three independent factors were studied, namely scale perception, distance perception, and orientation awareness. Enhancements for each factor was proposed, implemented, and evaluated. The results show that under remote perception conditions, where the operator was separated from the environment where the navigation took place, both distance perception and scale perception were significantly impaired as compared with that obtained under direct perception conditions. In addition, for each of the proposed enhancements designed for each critical factor, the corresponding factor was significantly improved. The broader impacts of this work can be applied to various human-robot collaborated applications, such as urban search and rescue. Applying the proposed enhancements will allow the operators to have fewer failures through hallways, doorways, or maneuvering around obstacles, as well as allowing a more accurate understanding of the area's layout when a map is not available.