Sharing but Not Caring: Similar Outcomes for Shared Control and Switching Control in Telepresence-Robot Navigation

Telepresence robots enable users to interact with remote environments, but efficient and intuitive navigation remains a challenge. In this work, we developed and evaluated a shared control method, in which the robot navigates autonomously while allowing users to affect the path generation to better suit their needs. We compared this with control switching, where users toggle between direct and automated control. We hypothesized that shared control would maintain efficiency comparable to control switching while potentially reducing user workload. The results of two consecutive user studies (each with final sample of n = 20) showed that shared control does not degrade navigation efficiency, but did not show a significant reduction in task load compared to control switching. Further research is needed to explore the underlying factors that influence user preference and performance in these control systems.