Abstract
We simulated a military mounted crewstation environment and conducted two experiments to examine the workload and performance of the combined position of gunner and robotics operator. The robotics tasks involved managing a semi-autonomous ground robot or teleoperating a ground robot to conduct reconnaissance tasks. We also evaluated whether aided target recognition (AiTR) capabilities (delivered either through tactile or tactile + visual cueing) for the gunnery task might benefit the concurrent robotics and communication tasks. Results showed that participants' gunnery task performance degraded significantly when s/he had to concurrently monitor, manage, or teleoperate a robot compared to the gunnery-single task condition. When there was AiTR to assist them with their gunnery task, operators' concurrent performance of robotics and communication tasks improved significantly. However, there was a tendency for participants to over-rely on automation when taskload was heavy, and performance degradations were observed in instances where automation failed to be entirely reliable. Participants' spatial ability was found to be a reliable predictor of robotics task performance. Participants' perceived workload increased consistently as the concurrent task conditions became more challenging and when their gunnery task was unassisted.
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