Conveying attitude perception through an ecological interface for ROV teleoperation

Abstract

Teleoperating underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) can be overwhelming for pilots due to the various data sources. Pilots often rely on attitude indicator (AI) to determine the vehicle’s orientation due to a lack of visual cues. Standard AI design can compromise vehicle safety and user situation awareness, especially during stressful operations (e.g., direction of motion, rate of motion, and gravity direction). This work presents an ecological interface design (EID) exploratory prototype of a novel attitude indicator. A virtual visual metaphor (in the form of a liquid and a particle system) simulates underwater buoyancy forces and the ROV’s orientation, visually reinforcing the system’s attitude with intuitive features. We conducted a user-study with standard western AI (control condition) on attitude recovery tasks. EID AI did not outperform the control condition on objective performance measures. Although it was not more effective, the EID AI yield a higher ratings for users’ perceived attitude, despite longer trial times and higher mental workload.