Towards a Joint Understanding of Remote Operation for Vehicles in Public Road Traffic
For researchers and practitioners in autonomous driving and teleoperation, this work provides a conceptual framework to bridge communication gaps across disciplines, though it is primarily a terminological and integrative effort rather than a novel technical solution.
The paper addresses the challenge of enabling remote operation for vehicles in public road traffic by developing a framework that clarifies terminology and integrates various forms of teleoperation. The result is a common ground for interdisciplinary discourse among researchers and stakeholders.
Sustained driving automation systems are envisioned to be used as the foundation for driverless mobility services. However, both researchers and practitioners acknowledge that current driving automation systems are not yet able to handle all traffic situations that a human driver can handle. To bridge this gap and enable mobility services without an in-vehicle human driver or fallback, remote operation (or teleoperation) is increasingly discussed. Recently, first legal actions have been taken to enable some forms of remote operation on public roads. Remote operation encompasses a broad spectrum of methods to support a driving automation system, ranging from remote assistance, which includes providing information or releasing a maneuver, to remote driving, which includes driving the vehicle from a remote location. As such, safe implementation of remote operation in public road traffic challenges the collaboration of multiple academic disciplines (e.g. engineering, psychology, informatics, law, etc.) and stakeholders (e.g. remote operation service providers, remote operators, vehicle manufacturers, regulatory authorities, etc.). At the same time, the interdisciplinary discourse is often challenging due to differing expectations and language. To build a common ground, this article traces terminology back to the original differences in information processing both on human and vehicle side. This framework aims to help further discourse by directly specifying what is needed to engage a diverse audience including researchers and stakeholders of different backgrounds and interests. Recently discussed forms of teleoperation are integrated into this framework.