Experiences in Teleoperation of Land Vehicles

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Experiences in Teleoperation of Land Vehicles

D. E. McGovern

Teleoperation of land vehicles allows the removal of the operator from the vehicle to a remote location. This can greatly increase operator safety and comfort in applications such as security patrol or military combat. The cost includes system complexity and reduced system performance. All feedback on vehicle performance and on environmental conditions must pass through sensors, a communications channel, and displays. In particular, this requires vision to be transmitted by closed circuit television (CCTV), with a consequent degradation of information content. Vehicular teleoperation, as a result, places severe demands on the operator. Teleoperated land vehicles have been built and tested by many organizations including Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). The SNL fleet presently includes eight vehicles of varying capability. These vehicles have been operated using different types of controls, displays, and visual systems. Experimentation studying the effects of vision-system characteristics on off-road, remote driving has been performed for conditions of fixed camera versus steering coupled camera and color versus black and white video display. Additionally, much experience has been gained through system demonstrations and hardware development trials. This paper discusses the preliminary experimental findings and the results of the accumulated operational experience. (ERA citation 13:005560)