Human-centered design and evaluation of a workplace for the remote assistance of highly automated vehicles
DOI: 10.1007/s10111-024-00753-x
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Summary
This study addresses the design and evaluation of a human–machine interface (HMI) for remote assistance of highly automated vehicles (HAVs) at Society of Automotive Engineers Level 4. As fully autonomous driving remains challenging in complex urban environments, remote operators—legally defined as Technical Supervisors in Germany—are required to intervene when vehicles encounter situations they cannot handle autonomously. The research aims to develop a user-centered workplace prototype that ensures safety, efficiency, and high situation awareness (SA) for operators, while assessing usability, workload, and acceptance. The researchers developed a seven-screen HMI prototype based on prior click-prototype evaluations and legal requirements. The setup included video streams, a details screen for fleet status, a notification screen for incoming requests, a global map, and a touchscreen for interaction. The study employed a 3 × 3 within-subject experimental design with 34 participants holding relevant engineering degrees. Participants performed three primary scenarios: giving clearance to a proposed maneuver (Scenario 1), setting waypoints to bypass an obstacle (Scenario 2), and selecting an alternative route due to road closure (Scenario 3). To simulate elevated cognitive load, participants simultaneously performed an n-back secondary task at three levels: no secondary task, 1-back, and 2-back. Performance metrics included task reaction time and completion time, while subjective measures assessed SA, workload, usability, user experience, and acceptance. The results indicated that participants maintained sufficient situation awareness and were able to resolve scenarios quickly, even under the elevated cognitive load induced by the 2-back secondary task. The HMI yielded favorable ratings for usability, user experience, and acceptance. Although the study tested hypotheses predicting decreased performance and increased workload with higher cognitive demand, the findings suggest the interface effectively supported operators in managing routine assistance tasks. The data showed that operators could accurately perceive traffic elements, integrate information to form a coherent understanding, and predict future states, fulfilling all three levels of Endsley’s SA model. The significance of this work lies in providing empirical evidence for the viability of remote assistance as a legally compliant and operationally effective solution for HAVs. By demonstrating that a well-designed HMI can support high situation awareness and manageable workload even during multitasking, the study informs iterative workplace development. It highlights the importance of user-centered design in creating interfaces that balance information presentation with interaction efficiency, thereby facilitating the safe integration of remote operators into automated transportation systems.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-06 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-09 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-06 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-09; verification: verified.
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- Applied Guidance: design guidelines
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