A comparison of manual, voice, and automated control of a teleoperator viewing system

Teleoperators are devices used to perform tasks in areas which are hazardous for humans to enter. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Consolidated Fuel Reprocessing Program is developing a teleoperator to perform maintenance and repair of future nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. This effort involves designing optimal human-machine interfaces for the teleoperator cockpit. Current conceptual designs specify a two-operator team since it is thought that the demands of teleoperation are best divided into manipulative and sensory/locomotive areas of responsibility. However, in some circumstances it will be necessary to perform remote maintenance tasks with one operator. In this case, operation of manipulators and television cameras will interfere with one another to the detriment of overall teleoperator performance, since they place conflicting demands on the operator's finite information processing resources. This experiment investigated options for camera controls which may be less interfering with manipulator operations than conventional manual controls. Specifically, the experiment compared performance of remote maintenance tasks with control by computer word recognition and automation of camera aiming with performance using conventional, manually controlled pushbuttons and joysticks.

Operators worked more slowly with manual control, and were engaged in control motions for significantly smaller percentages of total task time than with either of the other control systems. There were no differences between voice control and automated control. There was no difference between manual control and voice control in the number of camera changes made; the automated tracking system made significantly more changes than the operators did when using either of the other control systems. Camera movements were of longest duration when operators used voice control, and changes made by the automated control system were of longer duration than changes made with manual control.

The results indicate that either voice control or automated tracking is preferable to manual control in the solo-operator situation. There was little to distinguish between voice control and automated tracking; however, operators retain control over camera functions with voice control, so it is the preferred control system.