Teleoperation of domestic service robots: Effects of global 3D environment maps in the user interface on operators' cognitive and performance metrics

This paper investigates the suitability of visualizing global 3D environment maps generated from RGB-D sensor data in teleoperation user interfaces for service robots. We carried out a controlled experiment involving 27 participants, four teleoperation tasks, and two types of novel global 3D mapping techniques. Results show substantial advantages of global 3D mapping over a control condition for three of the four tasks. Global 3D mapping in the user interface lead to reduced search times for objects and to fewer collisions. In most situations it also resulted in less operator workload, higher situation awareness, and higher accuracy of operators' mental models of the remote environment.