Joint effects of depth‑aiding augmentations and viewing positionson the quality of experience in augmented telepresence

Virtual and augmented reality is increasingly prevalent in industrial applications, such as remote control of industrial machinery,due to recent advances in head-mounted display technologies and low-latency communications via 5G. However, theinfluence of augmentations and camera placement-based viewing positions on operator performance in telepresence systemsremains unknown. In this paper, we investigate the joint effects of depth-aiding augmentations and viewing positionson the quality of experience for operators in augmented telepresence systems. A study was conducted with 27 non-expertparticipants using a real-time augmented telepresence system to perform a remote-controlled navigation and positioningtask, with varied depth-aiding augmentations and viewing positions. The resulting quality of experience was analyzed viaLikert opinion scales, task performance measurements, and simulator sickness evaluation. Results suggest that reducing thereliance on stereoscopic depth perception via camera placement has a significant benefit to operator performance and qualityof experience. Conversely, the depth-aiding augmentations can partly mitigate the negative effects of inferior viewingpositions. However the viewing-position based monoscopic and stereoscopic depth cues tend to dominate over cues basedon augmentations. There is also a discrepancy between the participants’ subjective opinions on augmentation helpfulness,and its observed effects on positioning task performance.Quality of Experience for Augmented Telepresence (KK-foundation 20160194