Exploring the Learnability of Two Teleoperation Setups for Assembly Tasks

Teleoperation is being used in a variety of applications - from mobile systems in the aerospace, automotive, and maritime sector to static high-precision systems in medicine. Each application requires a carefully designed system for a set of defined tasks in a specific environment and highly trained users. In manufacturing, teleoperation can be used by process or product experts to interact with objects (e.g. machinery and new product parts) that are in another location. To facilitate access, the teleoperation system must be easy to use and should not require a long learning phase. In this study, we evaluate two different setups of teleoperation systems for assembly tasks with respect to learnability and usability. The two setups differ only in the way the remote location is presented to the human operator: direct or blocked view, in which case a video stream serves as visualization. Performance analysis shows a clear learning effect, as task completion time decreased for both setups over repetitions. The results indicate that novices in teleoperation systems can learn to use the system in a few interactions. However, more research is required to accurately describe the learning curve for both setups. The perceived usability was in the lower acceptance range, emphasizing the need for improvement.