Exploring Cognitive Workload Changes in Teleoperators: Collaboration with On-Site Workers and Robots in Assembly Tasks

Teleoperation is commonly employed to perform industrial tasks in remote or inaccessible areas. However, there is a noticeable gap in evaluating cognitive workload of teleoperators in collaboration environments. This study compared the variation of cognitive workload for teleoperators guiding an on-site participant to complete a wire assembly task in two scenarios: one aided by a robot arm (tRH) and another without any robot assistance (HH). Additionally, the task demands for on-site participants were manipulated to measure its impact on teleoperator’s workload. NASA-TLX and EEG activity were utilized to assess workload. The results indicated that EEG theta activity was significantly higher for the HH group than tRH group, potentially showing lower workload for teleoperators in the scenario with robot assistance. Task difficulty did not affect any of the workload measures. The study highlights the importance of cognitive workload assessment in human-robot collaborations to optimize human cognitive demands in complex settings.