PREDICTIVE DISPLAYS FOR HIGH LATENCY TELEOPERATION

This paper presents a method to mitigate high latency in the teleoperation of unmanned ground systems through display prediction and state estimation. Specifically, it presents a simulation environment which models both sides of the teleoperation system in the laboratory. The simulation includes a teleoperated vehicle model to represent the dynamics in high fidelity. The sensors and actuators are modeled as well as the communication channel. The latency mitigation approach is implemented in this simulation environment, which consists of a feed-forward vehicle model as a state estimator which drives a predictive display algorithm. These components work together to help the operator receive immediate feedback regarding his/her control actions. The paper contains a technical discussion of the design as well as specific implementation. It concludes with the presentation of some experimental data which demonstrate significant improvement over the unmitigated case.