Human-in-the-loop proof of concept for lunar teleoperation: performance, workload, and neuro-physiological insights from the LUNA Analog Facility

As lunar missions progress towards a sustained human presence, teleoperated robotic systems will play a critical role in surface exploration, construction, and logistics. Humans will teleoperate systems in diverse settings, ranging from suited astronauts on the lunar surface, to mission control operators on Earth. Each of these contexts presents distinct cognitive and physical challenges to the human operator. This proof-of-concept study examined teleoperation performance, workload, and neuro-physiological responses in two lunar analog operational contexts: a constrained ‘Lunar’ condition in which participants wore full protective equipment under simulated lunar lighting, and an unconstrained ‘Control Center’ condition simulating remote, non-analogue lunar tele-operation. Eighteen participants teleoperated a lunar rover in the LUNA Analog Facility, completing both a flat-ground navigation task and an obstacle course task in a high-fidelity analog environment. Performance was measured via completion time, path length, and steering reversal rate; subjective workload via NASA-TLX scores; and neuro-physiological response via electrocardiography (ECG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Objective performance did not differ significantly between conditions on any metric, based on the 13 of 18 participants for whom complete performance data were available. Subjective workload was consistently and substantially higher in the Lunar condition, particularly during the obstacle course task. Heart rate was elevated in the Lunar condition in the full sample, while heart rate variability showed no significant differences between conditions. Neuro-physiological oxygenation data, available for 8 fNIRS-instrumented participants, showed no significant effect of Condition, Task, or their interaction on either oxy- or deoxyhemoglobin concentration change. Exploratory analyses suggested that the largest observed differences were more consistent with systemic (respiratory and thermoregulatory) confounds than with prefrontal neural activation. These findings emphasize the importance of designing human-robot systems for lunar missions with careful consideration of operator state and environmental constraints, independent of objective task success.