Human-Centered Design and Evaluation of a Workplace for the Remote Assistance of Highly Automated Vehicles

Remotely operating vehicles utilizes the benefits of vehicle automation when fully automated driving is not yet possible. A human operator ensures safety and availability from afar and supports the vehicle automation when its capabilities are exceeded. The remote operator thus fulfills the legal requirements in Germany as a Technical Supervisor to operate highly automated vehicles at SAE 4. To integrate the remote operator into the automated driving system, a novel user-centered human-machine interface (HMI) for remote assistance workplaces was developed and initially evaluated. The insights gained in this process were incorporated into the design of a workplace prototype for remote assistance. This prototype was now tested in the study reported here by 34 participants meeting the professional background criteria for the role of Technical Supervisor according to the German law by using typical remote assistance scenarios created in a simulation environment. Even under elevated cognitive load induced by simultaneously engaging in a secondary task, participants were able to obtain sufficient situation awareness and quickly resolve the scenarios. The HMI also yielded favorable usability and acceptance ratings. The results of the study inform the iterative workplace development and further research on the remote assistance of highly automated vehicles.