Teleoperation as a Step Towards Fully Autonomous Systems

In the foreseeable future, highly automated mobile systems, such as vehicles, robots, UAVs, or trains, will be confronted with difficult situations that require external support. The availability of such external support corresponds to level 4 driving automation and is an essential feature in current robotaxis and automated public transportation. While the first generation of level 4 prototypes relied on safety driver support, commercial systems are gradually moving towards support by teleoperation. Designing teleoperation support for level 4 systems is an end-to-end problem involving two main research and practical challenges, the teleoperation function defining the remote human interface with its scene representation and available control functions, and the real-time communication channel involving wired and wireless segments, which must provide reliable end-to-end data transport. Both challenges are tightly linked, and combined solutions are needed to reach the required safe teleoperation. Solutions can make use of the rich sensing and control system of a level 4 vehicle, which however can only be exploited if the communication channel provides adequate real-time access.