The Effects of Head-Coupled Control and a Head-Mounted Display (HMD) on Large-Area Search Tasks

Abstract

Proprioceptive cues afforded by a head-coupled head-mounted display (HMD) may enable performance advantages over a manual joystick with stationary display for large-area search tasks. A study was conducted to determine the effects of various head-coupled and hand-controlled camera control/display configurations on a 360-degree search task within a teleoperated vehicle environment. Ten volunteers participated in a simulation, remotely controlling a camera's line-of-sight to acquire as many targets as possible within a two-minute period. Six camera control/display configurations were studied including various permutations of camera control (manual joystick or head-coupled; nominal or increased gain) and display (stationary CRT or HMD). Teleoperated vehicle path was also varied (straight line or figure-8 pattern). Performance data revealed that significantly more unique targets and significantly less duplicate targets were designated with the manual joystick/stationary CRT combination than with the head-coupled HMD configurations. Workload ratings, situation awareness ratings, and simulator sickness data generally favored the non-HMD configurations.

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