| Today's field robots, such as the Sojourner Mars rover or the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, work alone to accomplish dirty, dull, or dangerous missions. Plans for the next generation of robotic systems call for multiple field robots to conduct these missions cooperatively under the direction of a single operator. This research examines the role of the operator in multiple-robot missions and creates a human-robot interaction framework that supports this role—a vital step toward the successful deployment of these future robots.; In a typical user-centered approach to the development of a human-robot interaction framework, the work practices of the robot operator would be observed, characterized, and integrated into the design. Unfortunately, there are no settings where one can study the operator of multiple robots at work because no such systems have been deployed. As an alternative, this research incorporated a surrogate setting that could be used to inform the early interaction design of multiple-robot systems. Police Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams were chosen as this setting, and an ethnographic study of SWAT commanders was conducted. Concepts from the interdisciplinary study of geographically distributed work, including common ground, shared mental models, and information sharing, were used to understand and characterize the ethnographic observations.; Using lessons learned from the surrogate setting, an implementation of a new human-robot interaction framework was demonstrated on the Micro Autonomous Rovers (MAR) platform in the Aerospace Robotics Laboratory at Stanford University. This interaction framework, which is based on the sensing and manipulation of physical objects by the robots, was derived from the finding that references to physical objects serve as an essential communication and coordination tool for SWAT commanders. A human-computer interface that utilizes direct manipulation techniques and three-dimensional computer graphics was created to test the new interaction paradigm. Using this interface, a single operator can coordinate the actions of multiple robots. Operators with many different levels of experience with robot operation were able to conduct a variety of complex missions using the MAR robots. |
