Improving tele-robotic navigation through augmented reality devices

Navigation is an essential element in many telerobotic operations especially those that involve time pressure and complex terrains. This study demonstrates that properly designed augmented reality interfaces can significantly aid human operators in the task of land based tele-robotic navigation. Participants in this study were assigned to one of three experimental conditions (control, sonification interface, visual interface). All participants were trained in tele-robotic landmine detection and navigation, the groups performed these tasks first with augmentation (session one) and then without (session two/transfer task). The results show that participants in the sonification interface group outperformed the visual interface and control group in terms of primary task sensitivity, the number of sectors cover and the number of sectors repeated. The results further indicated that a well designed AR navigation interface could serve as an effective training tool.