Effect of format of presentation on remote assistance of automated vehicles

Remote operators (ROs) of automated vehicles will be unable to provide remote assistance until they gain necessary situation awareness (SA). A critical question for the industry concerns the optimal format to deliver information to an RO. In this study, we consider remote assistance of automated vehicles using a choice decision task to test the effect of two formats of presentation of 360° driving videos: 1) in a head mounted display (HMD-360) where field of view (FOV) changes were based on head movement and 2) screen-based (SB) mouse-controlled FOV. Participants viewed 60 videos depicting scenarios categorised into seven groups, each representing different types of edge cases commonly encountered in real-world situations by ROs and distributed across various decision choices (left, right, forward, or reverse). Decision time and accuracy of decision were recorded. Analysis revealed significantly quicker decisions and higher accuracy in the HMD-360 condition. We recommend exploring HMD-360 presentation to improve operator SA in remote assistance of AVs, while cautioning against prolonged HMD use to mitigate potential discomfort.