Usability evaluation with different viewpoints of a Human-Swarm interface for UAVs control in formation

Abstract

A common way to organize a high number of robots, both when moving autonomously and when controlled by a human operator, is to let them move in formation. This is a principle that takes inspiration from the nature, that maximizes the possibility of monitoring the environment and therefore of anticipating risks and finding targets. In robotics, alongside these reasons, the organization of a robot team in a formation allows a human operator to deal with a high number of agents in a simpler way, moving the swarm as a single entity. In this context, the typology of visual feedback is fundamental for a correct situational awareness, but in common practice having an optimal camera configuration is not always possible. Usually human operators use cameras on board the multirotors, with an egocentric point of view, while it is known that in mobile robotics overall awareness and pattern recognition are optimized by exocentric views. In this article we present an analysis of the performance achieved by human operators controlling a swarm of UAVs in formation, accomplishing different tasks and using different point of views. The control architecture is implemented in a ROS framework and interfaced with a 3D simulation environment. Experimental tests show a degradation of performance while using egocentric cameras with respect of an exocentric point of view, although cameras on board the robots allow to satisfactorily accomplish simple tasks.

Post‐disaster assessment with unmanned aerial vehicles: A survey on practical implementations and research approaches

“…On the contrary, during tasks requiring a higher situational awareness, the gap in performance between the two points of view is much higher (Fig. ) …”

“…All aspects of Table have been taken into account. The interface allows having different visual feedbacks (egocentric or exocentric cameras), and tests related to the performance of users with various camera configuration have been carried out . The swarm behavior takes inspiration from the behavior‐based policy presented in Ref.…”

Decentralized Control of a Heterogeneous Human–Robot Team for Exploration and Patrolling

“…To the best of our knowledge, there are no examples of complex interactions between multiple humans and robots in this scenario. On the other hand, we can find several examples of human operators teleoperating one or more mobile robots [13], [32], [12], [33], [34], [35], [36]. For example, Setter et al [33] proposed a multi-agent manipulability concept, mapping the forces commanded by the operator through a grounded haptic interface to the motion of a swarm of mobile robots and viceversa.…”

The Project PRISMA: Post-Disaster Assessment with UAVs

“…The HSI allows human operators to pilot a team of multirotors in environments filled with obstacles, while the robots keep a structured formation, with a behavior-based policy where the global movement of each robot is calculated as the sum of single concurrent behaviours [27]. More details about the design of the interface can be found in [28].…”

“…A more detailed discussion on the results of the experiments can be found in [28]. The experimental environment and the control software is made available, as a ROS package, at the following link: https://github.com/CDibris/Quad Swarm.…”