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Open AccessArticle

Safety, Efficiency, and Mental Workload of Predictive Display in Simulated Teledriving

by Oren Musicant, Alexander Kuperman and Rotem Barachman

Sensors 2026, 26(1), 221; https://doi.org/10.3390/s26010221 - 29 Dec 2025

Viewed by 663

Vehicle remote driving services are increasingly used in urban settings. Yet, vehicle-operator communication time delays may pose a challenge for teleoperators in maintaining safety and efficiency. The purpose of this study was to examine whether Predictive Displays (PDs), which show the vehicle’s predicted real-time position, improve performance, safety, and mental workload under moderate time delays typical of 4G/5G networks. Twenty-nine participants drove a simulated urban route containing pedestrian crossings, overtaking, gap acceptance, and traffic light challenges under three conditions: 50 ms delay (baseline), 150 ms delay without PD, and 150 ms delay with PD. We analyzed the counts of crashes and navigation errors, task completion times, and the probability and intensity of braking and steering events, as well as self-reports of workload and usability. Results indicate that though descriptive trends indicated slightly sharper steering and braking under the 150 ms time delay conditions, the 150 ms time delay did not significantly degrade performance or increase workload compared with the 50 ms baseline. In addition, the PD neither improved performance nor reduced workload. Overall, participants demonstrated tolerance to typical 4G/5G network time delays, leaving little room for improvement rendering the necessitating of PDs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors and Sensor Fusion for Decision Making for Autonomous Driving)

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18 pages, 1924 KB

Open AccessArticle

Safety, Efficiency, and Mental Workload in Simulated Teledriving of a Vehicle as Functions of Camera Viewpoint

by Oren Musicant, Assaf Botzer and Bar Richmond-Hacham

Sensors 2024, 24(18), 6134; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24186134 - 23 Sep 2024

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1974

Abstract

Teleoperation services are expected to operate on-road and often in urban areas. In current teleoperation applications, teleoperators gain a higher viewpoint of the environment from a camera on the vehicle’s roof. However, it is unclear how this viewpoint compares to a conventional viewpoint in terms of safety, efficiency, and mental workload. In the current study, teleoperators (n = 148) performed driving tasks in a simulated urban environment with a conventional viewpoint (i.e., the simulated camera was positioned inside the vehicle at the height of a driver’s eyes) and a higher viewpoint (the simulated camera was positioned on the vehicle roof). The tasks required negotiating road geometry and other road users. At the end of the session, participants completed the NASA-TLX questionnaire. Results showed that participants completed most tasks faster with the higher viewpoint and reported lower frustration and mental demand. The camera position did not affect collision rates nor the probability of hard braking and steering events. We conclude that a viewpoint from the vehicle roof may improve teleoperation efficiency without compromising driving safety, while also lowering the teleoperators’ mental workload. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue On-Board and Remote Sensors in Intelligent Vehicles-2nd Edition)

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16 pages, 472 KB

Open AccessArticle

On the Legal and Economic Implications of Tele-Driving

by Thomas Hoffmann and Gunnar Prause

Machines 2023, 11(3), 331; https://doi.org/10.3390/machines11030331 - 27 Feb 2023

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 6156

Abstract

While the idea of autonomous vehicles has been enthusiastically embraced by scientists and commercial markets alike, ranging from solving the last mile problem across shared economy models in various segments to human transportation logistics, more than just a few aspects require further development before driverless urban logistics can be organized more thoroughly and meaningfully for our practical purposes. Before fully autonomous vehicles become standard, many of these shortcomings can be addressed (in part) by the remote operation of vehicles. Besides the various technological challenges, remote operation of vehicles also has many important legal and economic implications, impacting a wide area, including data protection, liability for torts performed, and mundane fields such as road traffic law. Based on a case study of a start-up developing remote operation solutions in Germany (Vay), this paper analyses and further develops the regulatory framework of remote operation solutions by highlighting their legal and economic implications. Since remote operation solutions are comprised of cyber-physical systems, this research is located in the context of Smart Cities and Industry 5.0, i.e., our research contributes to the related regulatory framework of the Smart City concept as well as to Industry 5.0 in international terms. Finally, the paper discusses future perspectives and proposes specific modes of compliance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Autonomous Driving: Advancements in Cognitive Perception Systems for Increased Level Autonomy)

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17 pages, 15784 KB

Open AccessArticle

Design, Implementation, and Empirical Validation of a Framework for Remote Car Driving Using a Commercial Mobile Network

by Javier Saez-Perez, Qi Wang, Jose M. Alcaraz-Calero and Jose Garcia-Rodriguez

Sensors 2023, 23(3), 1671; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23031671 - 3 Feb 2023

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 5951

Abstract

Despite the fact that autonomous driving systems are progressing in terms of their automation levels, the achievement of fully self-driving cars is still far from realization. Currently, most new cars accord with the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Level 2 of automation, which requires the driver to be able to take control of the car when needed: for this reason, it is believed that between now and the achievement of fully automated self-driving car systems, there will be a transition, in which remote driving cars will be a reality. In addition, there are tele-operation-use cases that require remote driving for health or safety reasons. However, there is a lack of detailed design and implementation available in the public domain for remote driving cars: therefore, in this work we propose a functional framework for remote driving vehicles. We implemented a prototype, using a commercial car. The prototype was connected to a commercial 4G/5G mobile network, and empirical experiments were conducted, to validate the prototype’s functions, and to evaluate its performance in real-world driving conditions. The design, implementation, and empirical evaluation provided detailed technical insights into this important research and innovation area. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Smart Vehicle Applications)

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