Visual Spatial Abilities in Uninhabited Ground Vehicle Task Performance During Teleoperation and Direct Line of Sight

Abstract

Two experiments investigated the role of spatial abilities on uninhabited ground vehicle (UGV) performance under two different viewing conditions: direct line of sight and teleoperation. The ability to operate a mobile robot was indexed by task completion time and total number of course collisions. Results showed that participants with higher spatial abilities exhibited superior performance in both direct line of sight and teleoperation. Performance under direct line of sight was correlated with both spatial relations and spatial visualization, whereas performance during teleoperation was only correlated with spatial relations ability. Understanding the roles of spatial abilities under different viewing conditions will aid in the advancement of selection criteria and training paradigms for robot operators.