Investigation into Pilot Handling Qualities in Teleoperation Rendezvous and Docking with Time Delay

Teleoperation rendezvous and docking can be used as a backup for autonomous rendezvous and docking (RVD) for an unmanned spacecraft when the autonomous system is failure or for guiding the chaser docking with an uncooperative target. The theoretical model for analyzing the handling qualities in teleoperation RVD process is established based on the previous studies conducted by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The predictive factor is introduced to describe the pilot's predictive ability in the teleoperation tasks with time delay, which interrelates with the skills of a pilot and the predictive assist approach used in the tasks such as the predictive display method. Based on the semi-physical simulation system in our laboratory, 900 experiments at two levels of time delay are carried out by 18 volunteers for validating the established model. The experimental results demonstrate the correctness of the theoretical model and indicate that a skilled pilot has a predictive ability of approximately 0.9 in teleoperation RVD tasks. The theoretical analysis shows that the handling qualities are greatly affected by the time delay and the predictive factor, and it is impossible to achieve a teleoperation RVD task for the skilled pilot when the time delay is larger than 9.0 s.