Remote Monitoring and Teleoperation of Autonomous Vehicles—Is Virtual Reality an Option? | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore

Remote Monitoring and Teleoperation of Autonomous Vehicles—Is Virtual Reality an Option?


Abstract:

While the promise of autonomous vehicles has led to significant scientific and industrial progress, fully automated, SAE level 5 conform cars will likely not see mass ado...Show More

Abstract:

While the promise of autonomous vehicles has led to significant scientific and industrial progress, fully automated, SAE level 5 conform cars will likely not see mass adoption anytime soon. Instead, in many applications, human supervision, such as remote monitoring and teleoperation, will be required for the foreseeable future. While Virtual Reality (VR) has been proposed as one potential interface for teleoperation, its benefits and drawbacks over physical monitoring and teleoperation solutions have not been thoroughly investigated. To this end, we contribute three user studies, comparing and quantifying the performance of and subjective feedback for a VR-based system with an existing monitoring and teleoperation system, which is in industrial use today. Through these three user studies, we contribute to a better understanding of future virtual monitoring and teleoperation solutions for autonomous vehicles. The results of our first user study (n= 16) indicate that a VR interface replicating the physical interface does not outperform the physical interface. It also quantifies the negative effects that combined monitoring and teleoperating tasks have on users irrespective of the interface being used. The results of the second user study (n= 24) indicate that the perceptual and ergonomic issues caused by VR outweigh its benefits, like better concentration through isolation. The third follow-up user study (n= 24) specifically targeted the perceptual and ergonomic issues of VR; the subjective feedback of this study indicates that newer-generation VR headsets have the potential to catch up with the current physical displays.
Date of Conference: 16-20 October 2023
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 04 December 2023
ISBN Information:

ISSN Information:

Conference Location: Sydney, Australia

1 Introduction

Despite massive investments in autonomous driving with certain technological progress, fully autonomous driving (SAE level 5 [23]) does not seem achievable in the foreseeable future. Hence, until the introduction of robust level-5 driving, autonomous vehicles (AVs) will require human supervision and direct intervention in certain situations (SAE level 4), as required by law in some countries. However, one-on-one supervision—no matter if in the car or remotely—is costly and might hinder the broad application of the technology. Hence, it is relevant to study scenarios where one supervisor can monitor multiple vehicles at once and, if needed, takes over one vehicle to teleoperate it. In fact, this is one mode of operation in industrial use today in Germany. Still, monitoring of the remaining vehicles needs to be continued in these situations. Challenges arise from providing interfaces for a control station that support—although going along with quite different requirements— both monitoring and teleoperation tasks alike. On the one hand, remote monitoring involves tasks like regularly inspecting fuel status, the current location of the AVs, network connection status, etc. On the other hand, teleoperation requires having a cockpit setup available remotely.

e.g., in Germany through the “Federal Act Amending the Road Traffic Act and the Compulsory Insurance Act” and the “Ordinance on the Approval and Operation of Motor Vehicles with Autonomous Driving Functions in Specified Operating Areas – Autonomous Vehicles Approval and Operation Ordinance (AFGBV)”

Contact IEEE to Subscribe

References

References is not available for this document.