Awareness in human-robot interactions

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 2010

Several methods of measuring the situation awareness (SA) of a human who is teleoperating a robot are compared for the domain of urban search and rescue (USAR), to identify those that have the greatest potential for developing more reliable and accurate ways of measuring SA for effectively operating robot systems. Such comparative studies are essential because SA has been identified as a key human factors issue since post-September 11, 2001, operations for effective task performance in (tele)robotics. This paper discusses the pros and cons of the main aspects that need to be included in developing reliable SA measurement methods from the related domain of air traffic control, in which SA has a long research history. These methods have been adopted and modified accordingly to address needs of teleoperating robot systems and have been tested in a realistic USAR simulated scenario developed especially for performing these assessments. The results were compared against each other as well as with existing measures. A new method of measuring task performance that is more appropriate for USAR is also presented and tested within the comparative studies.

Proc. of …, 2003

We have designed a novel interface to enable command and control of a team of mobile robots by a single operator. To understand the usability of MITRE's human-robot interface, we have embarked on a multi-step evaluation program. This paper describes the first step in the program, which is to apply techniques from the human-computer interaction field to evaluate how well the interface supports a single user controlling a single robot in an urban search-and-rescue environment. In particular, this paper describes our attempts to evaluate the interface in terms of external measures that benchmark the ability of a human-robot interface to support an operator performing search and rescue missions. We performed the evaluation in a testbed that includes simulated hazards and rubble, and was based on a design developed by NIST for the RoboCup and AAAI Search and Rescue Competitions to represent an urban post-disaster environment.

2006

This paper describes our approach for human-robot interaction (HRI) research and summarizes our progress to date. We have concentrated on HRI in urban search and rescue (USAR) because it is an example of a safety-critical application. We analyzed the performance of robotic teams at two USAR robotics competitions using adaptations of techniques from the human-computer interaction (HCI) field and determined that problems experienced by the operators or robots could be traced to a lack of awareness on the part of the operator of the robots' status, location, or immediate surroundings. To aid analysis, we developed a taxonomy of HRI-related characteristics, evaluation guidelines, a coding scheme that categorizes HRI activities, and a fine-grained definition of HRI awareness based on awareness research from computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). As a result, we are beginning to determine design guidelines for HRI that are being used in developing next-generation robots at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Autonomous Robots, 2007

This paper presents results from three years of studying human-robot interaction in the context of the AAAI Robot Rescue Competition. We discuss our study methodology, the competitors' systems and performance, and suggest ways to improve human-robot interaction in urban search and rescue (USAR) as well as other remote robot operations.

In December 2013, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials were held in Homestead, Florida. The DRC Trials were designed to test the capabilities of humanoid robots in disaster response scenarios with degraded communications. Each team created their own interaction method to control their robot, either the Boston Dynamics Atlas robot or a robot built by the team themselves. Of the fifteen competing teams, eight participated in our study of human-robot interaction (HRI). We observed the participating teams from the field (with the robot) and in the control room (with the operators), noting many performance metrics, such as critical incidents and utterances, and categorizing their interaction methods according to number of operators, control methods, and interface automation. We decomposed each task into a series of subtasks, different from the DRC Trials official subtasks for points, to gain a better understanding of each team's performance in varying complexities of mobility and manipulation. Each team's interaction methods have been compared to their performance and correlations have been analyzed to understand why some teams ranked higher than others. We discuss lessons learned from this study, and have found in general that the guidelines for human-robot interaction for unmanned ground vehicles still hold true: more sensor fusion, fewer operators, and more automation lead to better performance.

Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C: …, 2004

Rescue robotics has been suggested by a recent DARPA/NSF study as an application domain for the research in human-robot integration (HRI). This article provides a short tutorial on how robots are currently used in urban search and rescue (USAR) and discusses the HRI issues encountered over the past eight years. A domain theory of the search activity is formulated. The domain theory consists of two parts: (1) a workflow model identifying the major tasks, actions, and roles in robot-assisted search (e.g., a workflow model) and (2) a general information flow model of how data from the robot is fused by various team members into information and knowledge. The information flow model also captures the types of situation awareness needed by each agent in the rescue robot system. The article presents a synopsis of the major HRI issues in reducing the number of humans it takes to control a robot, maintaining performance with geographically distributed teams with intermittent communications, and encouraging acceptance within the existing social structure.

Human–Computer …, 2004

Multi-Robot Systems: From Swarms to Intelligent Automata, 2002

Human-robot interaction (HRI) for mobile robots is still in its infancy. Most user interactions with robots have been limited to tele-operation capabilities where the most common interface provided to the user has been the video feed from the robotic platform and some way of directing the path of the robot. For mobile robots with semiautonomous capabilities, the user is also provided with a means of setting way points. More importantly, most HRI capabilities have been developed by robotics experts for use by robotics experts. As robots increase in capabilities and are able to perform more tasks in an autonomous manner we need to think about the interactions that humans will have with robots and what software architecture and user interface designs can accommodate the human in-the-loop. We also need to design systems that can be used by domain experts but not robotics experts. This paper outlines a theory of human-robot interaction and proposes the interactions and information needed by both humans and robots for the different levels of interaction, including an evaluation methodology based on situational awareness.

InTech eBooks, 2010