Teleoperated trajectory tracking of remotely operated vehicles using spatial auditory interface

:The majority of Human-Machine-Interfaces (HMIs) designed for teleoperation of Unmanned Vehicles (UVs) present information only visually. Frequent overloading of operator's visual channel may cause unwanted mishaps. In order to reduce such mishaps and improve overall operating performance, this paper proposes the extension of the HMI by hearing modality in the form of spatial auditory display for trajectory tracking, the most complex guidance task. The main novelty of the interface is introduction of guidance laws to generate the reference presented to the operator as a spatial auditory image of the virtual target to be followed. Guidance laws for teleoperated trajectory tracking are based on modified "lookahead distance" strategy, known from path following applications. The paper also analyzes the stability of the kinematic controller based on this new guidance control law. The experiments show that the novel guidance strategy provides comprehensible and effective reference providing excellent trajectory tracking performance.