We developed a stereoscopic video system, which has high-resolution images for central vision and it is called the Q system. The Q system uses a compound image that is a wide-angle image with an embedded high-resolution image. However, the Q system could not be used under situations where many robots work at the same time. This is because it needs four channels of video signals and the available channels could be limited under such situations. Thus, we have developed a digital Q system. The system can be used under such restricted situations, because the required data transfer rate is adjustable by changing the compression rates for a high-resolution image and a wide-angle image. In addition, an experiment confirmed that even though the systems used the same data transfer rate, digital Q system could make teleoperation more efficient and more precise than a conventional stereoscopic video system.

Teleoperation requires both wide vision to recognize a whole workspace and fine vision to recognize the precise structure of objects which an operator wants to see. In order to achieve high operational efficiency in teleoperation, we have developed the Q stereoscopic video system which is constructed of four sets of video cameras and monitors. It requires four video channels to transmit video signals. However, four channels are not always available for a video system because of the limitation of the number of radio channels when multiple systems are used at the same time. Therefore we have tried to reduce the number of channels on this system by sending images from the right and left cameras alternately by field. In experiment 1, we compared the acuity of depth perception under three kinds of stereoscopic video systems, the original Q stereoscopic video system, the Q stereoscopic video system with two channel transmission, and the conventional stereoscopic video system. As the result of the experiment, the original Q stereoscopic video system enabled us to perceive depth most precisely, the Q stereoscopic video system with two channel transmission less so, and the conventional stereoscopic video system even less. In experiment 2, we compared the Q stereoscopic video system with two channel transmission to the original Q stereoscopic video system. The result showed that the operators were able to work more efficiently under the original Q stereoscopic video system than under the Q stereoscopic video system with two channel transmissions. In experiment 3, we compared the Q stereoscopic video system with two channel transmission to the conventional stereoscopic video system. It was found out in this study that the new stereoscopic video system we developed enabled operators to work more efficiently and to perceive depth more precisely than the conventional stereoscopic video system, although the number of channels for image transmission of this system was equal to that of the conventional stereoscopic video system.