A Comparative Study of First-Person and Third-Person Visual Feedback in Teleoperated Mobile Robot Navigation

Abstract

Teleoperated mobile robots are used in search-and-rescue, surgery, and space exploration, in which operators frequently rely on visual data provided by cameras to navigate and make choices. The placement of the camera can significantly influence an operator’s spatial awareness and driving speed. The most common perspective is the first-person point of view, which offers the exact angle from the robot’s perspective. This point of view provides increased depth perception and increased reliability for precise tasks. Meanwhile, a third-person point of view is where the camera is placed external to the robot's physical body to observe it from a distance, providing a full view of the robot. Despite these differences, it remains unclear which camera perspective offers the greatest benefits for the operator. To address this gap in knowledge, this study will investigate how a first-person and third-person camera perspective affects teleoperated robot performance during a tennis ball collection task. For first-person view, the camera will be mounted on the front of our robot. For third-person view, it will be mounted above and in the back of the robot. Sixteen students will operate the same robot under both first and third person points of view to navigate an obstacle course while collecting tennis balls. To ensure a fair comparison, the same hardware, course layout, and lighting conditions will be used for both tests, with only the camera position on the robot changing. Ease of control will be measured by the number of collisions with obstacles, the time to complete the course, and a survey after testing is completed. The post-test survey will assess the participants' perceived ease of control and preferred camera perspective. The results of this experiment will provide valuable insight into how camera perspective affects operator performance and may help guide future robot designs in a wide variety of applications.