Teamwork in controlling multiple robots

Abstract

Simultaneously controlling increasing numbers of robots requires multiple operators working together as a team. Helping operators allocate attention among different robots and determining how to construct the human-robot team to promote performance and reduce workload are critical questions that must be answered in these settings. To this end, we investigated the effect of team structure and search guidance on operators' performance, subjective workload, work processes and communication. To investigate team structure in an urban search and rescue setting, we compared a pooled condition, in which team members shared control of 24 robots, with a sector condition, in which each team member control half of all the robots. For search guidance, a notification was given when the operator spent too much time on one robot and either suggested or forced the operator to change to another robot. A total of 48 participants completed the experiment with two persons forming one team. The results demonstrate that automated search guidance neither increased nor decreased performance. However, suggested search guidance decreased average task completion time in Sector teams. Search guidance also influenced operators' teleoperation behaviors. For team structure, pooled teams experienced lower subjective workload than sector teams. Pooled teams communicated more than sector teams, but sector teams teleoperated more than pool teams.

Human-Robot Teaming in Urban Search and Rescue

“…However, the operator also paid less attention to location and orientation, and felt lost if they had to resume manual control. This effect can be reduced by increasing the number of operators and pooling the robots under their command (Gao, Cummings, & Bertuccelli, 2012), or by selecting more capable operators. However, more manpower and higher skill is contrary to the desired end goal of USAR robotics, which is to allow a small number of relatively untrained operators to control a large number of USAR robots to effectively complete their tasks.…”

Az ember-robot együttműködését szervező rendszerek multi-ágensű környezetben

“…Sector assignment can reduce the number of robots the operator must monitor and control [2]. However, the Shared Pool condition offers a more flexible scheduling advantage of load balancing since any operator in the team can service any robot as needed [2].…”

“…Sector assignment can reduce the number of robots the operator must monitor and control [2]. However, the Shared Pool condition offers a more flexible scheduling advantage of load balancing since any operator in the team can service any robot as needed [2]. Although there was no significant difference on performance, teams that shared the control of all robots were found to have slightly lower workload [1].…”

“…Enhanced autonomy makes it possible for one operator to control multiple robots. It releases an operator from manually controlling each robot and makes it possible to do tasks requiring monitoring, coordination, and complex decision-making [2]. Human -robot interaction is used when the completion of the task is too risky for people or cannot be achieved by people.…”

Modeling teamwork of multi-human multi-agent teams

“…In Sector teams, Suggested search guidance helped operators mark victims faster when they appeared in the cameras as measured by mean display-to-mark time (p=0.024). Detailed results can be found in a previous paper [1].…”