Teamwork in controlling multiple robots

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 mus...

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Main Authors: Gao, F., Cummings, M. L., Bertuccelli, L. F.
Format: Presentation
Published: ACM/IEEE 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/90366
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author Gao, F.
Cummings, M. L.
Bertuccelli, L. F.
author_facet Gao, F.
Cummings, M. L.
Bertuccelli, L. F.
author_sort Gao, F.
collection MIT
description 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.
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spelling mit-1721.1/903662019-04-10T11:51:36Z Teamwork in controlling multiple robots Gao, F. Cummings, M. L. Bertuccelli, L. F. Multiple Robots Teamwork Communication Urban Search and Rescue 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. This research is sponsored by the Office for Naval Research and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. 2014-09-25T20:17:52Z 2014-09-25T20:17:52Z 2012 Presentation http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/90366 Fei Gao, Missy L. Cummings, and Luca F. Bertuccelli. 2012. Teamwork in controlling multiple robots. In Proceedings of the seventh annual ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI '12), ACM, New York, NY, USA, 81-8, 2012. DOI=10.1145/2157689.2157703 application/pdf ACM/IEEE
spellingShingle Multiple Robots
Teamwork
Communication
Urban Search and Rescue
Gao, F.
Cummings, M. L.
Bertuccelli, L. F.
Teamwork in controlling multiple robots
title Teamwork in controlling multiple robots
title_full Teamwork in controlling multiple robots
title_fullStr Teamwork in controlling multiple robots
title_full_unstemmed Teamwork in controlling multiple robots
title_short Teamwork in controlling multiple robots
title_sort teamwork in controlling multiple robots
topic Multiple Robots
Teamwork
Communication
Urban Search and Rescue
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/90366
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