In-Device Feedback in Immersive Head-Mounted Displays for Distance Perception During Teleoperation of Unmanned Ground Vehicles
This addresses a critical issue for remote UGV operators by improving distance perception without cluttering the display, though it is an incremental improvement over existing feedback methods.
The paper tackled the problem of poor distance perception in VR head-mounted displays for teleoperating unmanned ground vehicles by proposing off-screen in-device feedback using vibro-tactile or light-visual cues, resulting in significantly better performance, reduced workload, and improved usability in a driving task.
In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) have been used to provide an immersive, first-person view in real-time for the remote-control of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV). One critical issue is that it is challenging to perceive the distance of obstacles surrounding the vehicle from 2D views in the HMD, which deteriorates the control of UGV. Conventional distance indicators used in HMD take up screen space which leads clutter on the display and can further reduce situation awareness of the physical environment. To address the issue, in this paper we propose off-screen in-device feedback using vibro-tactile and/or light-visual cues to provide real-time distance information for the remote control of UGV. Results from a study show a significantly better performance with either feedback type, reduced workload and improved usability in a driving task that requires continuous perception of the distance between the UGV and its environmental objects or obstacles. Our findings show a solid case for in-device vibro-tactile and/or light-visual feedback to support remote operation of UGVs that highly relies on distance perception of objects.