Driving from a Distance: Challenges and Guidelines for Autonomous Vehicle Teleoperation Interfaces

Autonomous vehicle (AV) technologies are rapidly evolving with the vision of having self-driving cars moving safely with no human input. However, it is clear that at least in the near and foreseeable future, AVs will not be able to resolve all road incidents and that in some situations remote human assistance will be required. However, remote driving is not trivial and introduces many challenges stemming mostly from the physical disconnect of the remote operator. In order to highlight these challenges and understand how to better design AV teleoperation interfaces, we conducted several observations of AV teleoperation sessions as well as in-depth interviews with 14 experts. Based on these interviews, we provide an investigation and analysis of the major AV teleoperation challenges. We follow this by providing design suggestions for the development of future teleoperation interfaces for assistance and driving of AVs.