Supporting Situation Awareness Through Robot-to-Human Information Exchanges Under Conditions of Visuospatial Perspective Taking

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of robot-to-human information exchanges on the development of human situation awareness under differing levels of visuospatial perspective taking and the effect of situation awareness on the quality of human assistance provided to a robot. Fifty-six male participants with ages ranging from 18 to 29 (M = 18.89, SD = 3.41) were included in the analysis of the results. The results showed that if robots can increasingly support a human's understanding of when assistance is needed, they will be better able to provide that assistance. When spatial information was added to robot-to-human information exchanges, representing that spatial information in global-relative reference frames was more beneficial than representing that information in reference to the human's view of the environment.

Operator Awareness in Human–Robot Collaboration Through Wearable Vibrotactile Feedback

“…However, allowing robots to understand humans is by far not enough to establish a fluent and effective collaboration. In fact, recent papers have motivated the need for mutual understanding, where the human has to be aware about the inference capabilities of the robot, [7], [8]. Technological advancements have introduced a plethora of new methodologies to increase the awareness of the operator during the collaboration with a robot.…”