Abstract A Virtual Reality Tool for Teleoperation Research

Efficiency in teleoperation systems is strongly affected by the relationship between the operator and the remote environment. If the operator has access to easily comprehensible information, his capability for opportune decision-making increases. Virtual reality has showed to be an effective means of displaying information to the human operator. It allows creating three-dimensional and interactive environments, which can be explored and controlled in an intuitive way. In our system, called ASSET, we have applied virtual reality techniques in design and implementation of teleoperation systems human-machine interface. ASSET's objective was to create an object-oriented software framework for teleoperation systems development. This tool allows flexible customizing and can be used as a testbed for evaluating interaction techniques, devices, simulation models and for research about autonomous agents