The Role of Embodiment in Intuitive Whole-Body Teleoperation for Mobile Manipulation

Abstract

Intuitive Teleoperation interfaces are essential for mobile manipulation robots to ensure high quality data collection while reducing operator workload. A strong sense of embodiment combined with minimal physical and cognitive demands not only enhances the user experience during large-scale data collection, but also helps maintain data quality over extended periods. This becomes especially crucial for challenging long-horizon mobile manipulation tasks that require whole-body coordination. We compare two distinct robot control paradigms: a coupled embodiment integrating arm manipulation and base navigation functions, and a decoupled embodiment treating these systems as separate control entities. Additionally, we evaluate two visual feedback mechanisms: immersive virtual reality and conventional screen-based visualization of the robot's field of view. These configurations were systematically assessed across a complex, multi-stage task sequence requiring integrated planning and execution. Our results show that the use of VR as a feedback modality increases task completion time, cognitive workload, and perceived effort of the teleoperator. Coupling manipulation and navigation leads to a comparable workload on the user as decoupling the embodiments, while preliminary experiments suggest that data acquired by coupled teleoperation leads to better imitation learning performance. Our holistic view on intuitive teleoperation interfaces provides valuable insight into collecting high-quality, high-dimensional mobile manipulation data at scale with the human operator in mind.

Teleoperation Setup

Examples of Interface Combinations

Real Robot

Whole Body Controller (WBC)

with VR HMD

Simulation

Separate Body Controller (SBC)

without VR HMD

Evaluation Metrics

Usability

Trial: SEQ
Modality: UMUX

Simulation Sickness

Modality: reduced SSQ

Performance

Trial: Success rate and Task completion times

Sense of Embodiment

Modality: Tailored questions

Teleoperation Specifics

Trial: Choice of camera stream (with VR), controller poses
Modality: Tailored questions

Post-test

Final Modality comparison and open questions

Workload

Modality: Raw NASA TLX
Trial: ARWES

Training Quality

Modality: OATS

Ergonomics

Trial: RULA and CoM Divergence

Results

Workload – TLX

VR increased perceived workload

Usage of VR HMD imposed higher perceived workload (p < 0.01), marginally for temporal demand (p < 0.1).
Minimal effect from Controller: higher physical strain for SBC (p < 0.05), higher frustration for WBC (p < 0.01).

Workload – TLX

Raw NASA TLX scores

Usage of VR HMD imposed high workload on average.
Without VR imposed somewhat high workload on average.

Usability – SEQ

Single Ease Question

Usage of VR HMD resulted in worse usability scores (p = 0.003).
Very slight improvement over trials (p = 0.068).
No significant effect from Controller (p = 0.39).

Usability – UMUX

Usability Metric for User Experience

Usage of VR HMD resulted in worse usability scores (p < 0.01).

Task Performance

Completion times

Usage of VR HMD significantly increased total completion time (+142s, p = 0.026).
WBC was significantly slower than SBC overall (+169s, p = 0.025).

Task Performance

Success rates

High success across all modalities and controllers, mean = 9.4 / 10.
Slight, but significant difference between controller and modalities or trials (p > 0.2).

Ergonomics

Center of Mass divergence

More frequent shifts for WBC due to inherent locomotion strategy.
Greater posture instability and whole-body engagement of WBC contributes to fatigue.

Teleoperation

Choice of camera view

Users of SBC used more the head camera view than users of WBC (t-test p < 0.0001).
Higher sense of embodiment and confidence for SBC users.

Conclusion

Controllers

SBC controller preferred over WBC for comfort and efficiency, though SBC required more frequent arm repositioning.

Lower perceived physical demand for WBC despite higher CoM divergence.

SBC outperforms WBC in usability and efficiency, though WBC is more cost-effective, smoother, and provides interesting framework for policy learning — but needs refinement.

Visualization Modalities

Without VR outperforms VR in usability, workload, and task performance and was largely preferred by participants.

VR hindered by video lag and caused moderate simulation sickness.

Same-room teleoperation favoured without VR.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Emanuel Iwanow, Elisa Alboni, Sohan Rudra, Snehal Jauhri, Ali Younes, Franziska Herbert, Mel Germroth, Han Liu, and Prof. Larissa Driemeier for their valuable support and advice. Special thanks are extended to all participants of the user study, who generously dedicated their time to explore the world of robotic teleoperation and contributed to the success of this research. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the EU’s Horizon Europe project ARISE, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) project Robotics Institute Germany (RIG).

BibTeX

@inproceedings{moyen2025role,
  title     = {The Role of Embodiment in Intuitive Whole-Body Teleoperation for Mobile Manipulation},
  author    = {Moyen, Sophia Bianchi and Krohn, Rickmer and Lueth, Sophie and Pompetzki, Kay and Peters, Jan and Prasad, Vignesh and Chalvatzaki, Georgia},
  booktitle = {IEEE-RAS Humanoids Conference},
  year      = {2025}
}