Teleoperation Bottlenecks: From Network-Centric Optimization to Human-Centered Design

Teleoperation has been a central research topic for over six decades, with envisioned applications in power plants, extreme exploration, surgery, remote driving, industrial maintenance, and care robotics. Despite substantial technological progress, teleoperated systems remain far from ubiquitous deployment. This paper revisits the "teleoperation paradox" - the persistent gap between research maturity and real-world adoption - and investigates where the effective bottlenecks lie. Building on recent analyses of network capabilities and human factors, we argue that for most teleoperation applications, contemporary 5G communication infrastructures can meet key latency and bandwidth requirements under favorable conditions. At the same time, human factors - including situation awareness, cognitive load, expertise, and interface design - increasingly constrain performance, even when basic communication requirements are satisfied. This paper (i) summarizes teleoperation network requirements and compares them to 5G/6G capabilities, (ii) relates network evolution to human perceptual and cognitive limits, and (iii) structures operator limitations. Overall, our results motivate a shift in research emphasis toward human-centered design, operator training, advanced shared control algorithms, and safety-by-design solutions.