Analysis of the Effect of the Operator's Spatial Cognition on Their Planning Skills in Unmanned Construction

Abstract

Unmanned construction is a technology for operating construction machinery remotely to ensure safety of workers, for example for disaster site restoration. However, one of the most challenging problems with this technology is that the lack of visual information reduces its work efficiency to less than half that of manned construction. To ensure efficient work, it is necessary for the operators to properly plan the order of operations. While previous studies have analyzed planning skills in manned operations, only few studies have investigated planning skills in teleoperation. For planning skills in teleoperation, the additional element of human spatial cognition must be considered. Spatial cognition is the ability to grasp the work site three-dimensionally and accurately. This study aims to analyze the effect of the operator's spatial cognition on their planning skills in teleoperation. We measured the operator's spatial cognition and their planning skills on a simulator that reproduced the teleoperation of construction machineries. The results suggest that planning skills in teleoperation depend on the operator's spatial cognition. Furthermore, we proposed a support method for operators with low spatial cognition. To confirm the usefulness of the proposed method, an experiment was performed on a simulator that reproduced the teleoperation of construction machineries. The result indicates that the planning performance of the operator with low spatial cognition improved to the same level as that of the operator with high spatial cognition. Thus, the proposed method is expected to facilitate recognition of 3D space and to improve work efficiency of teleoperation for operators with low spatial cognition.