A dirty-bomb experiment conducted at the INL is used to evaluate the effectiveness and suitability of three different modes of robot control. The experiment uses three distinct user groups to understand how participants' background and training affect the way in which they use and benefit from autonomy. The results show that the target mode, which involves automated mapping and plume tracing together with a point and click tasking tool, provides the best performance for each group. This is true for objective performance such as source detection and localization accuracy as well as subjective measures such as perceived workload, frustration and preference. The best overall performance is achieved by the Explosive Ordinance Disposal group which has experience in both robot teleoperation and dirty bomb response. The user group that benefits least from autonomy is the Nuclear Engineers that have no experience with either robot operation or dirty bomb response. The group that benefits most from autonomy is the Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team that has extensive experience related to the task, but no robot training.

This paper introduces a methodology for human-robot interaction (HRI) experiments that involves soliciting the general public for participation. In particular, it reviews a series of HRI usability experiments with visitors to the Saint Louis Science Center and the Museum of Idaho's annual Science and Engineering Expo between the years 2003 and 2006. During these events visitors to the museums evaluated the usability of various levels of robot autonomy, teamed with fellow humans to evaluate distributing control of an individual robot, and provided data for a comparative analysis of a variety of data representation schemes.

In previous work, increased complexity of robot behaviors and the accompanying interface design often led to operator confusion and/or a fight for control between the robot and operator. We believe the reason for the conflict was that the design of the interface and interactions presented too much of the underlying robot design model to the operator. Since the design model includes the implementation of sensors, behaviors, and sophisticated algorithms, the result was that the operator's cognitive efforts were focused on understanding the design of the robot system as opposed to focusing on the task at hand. This paper illustrates how this very problem emerged at the INL and how the implementation of new metaphors for interaction has allowed us to hide the design model from the user and allow the user to focus more on the task at hand. Supporting the user's focus on the task rather than on the design model allows increased use of the system and significant performance improvement in a search task with novice users.

This paper evaluates collaborative tasking tools that facilitate dynamic sharing of responsibilities between robot and operator throughout a search and detection task Participants who utilize Collaborative Tasking Mode (CTM) do not experience a significant performance penalty, yet benefit from reduced workload and fewer instances of confusion. In addition, CTM participants report a higher overall feeling of control as compared to those using Standard Shared Mode.

This paper evaluates collaborative tasking tools that facilitate dynamic sharing of responsibilities between robot and operator throughout a search and detection task. The goal is to arbitrate human and robot initiative such that the user can provide input at different levels without interfering with the robot's ability to navigate, avoid obstacles, plan global paths, and achieve task goals. A real-world search and detection experiment is used to compare standard shared mode (SSM), where robot behavior unfolds from the robot's perception of its local environment and the attainment of task goals are the result of continuous operator supervision, to a collaborative tasking mode (CTM), where operators input mission level tasks and the system dynamically constrains user and robot initiative based on the task element. Participants who utilize CTM do not experience a significant performance penalty, yet benefit from reduced workload and fewer instances of confusion. In addition, CTM participants report a higher overall feeling of control as compared to those using SSM

This paper presents results from three experiments in which human operators were teamed with a mixed-initiative robot control system to accomplish various indoor search and exploration tasks. By assessing human workload and error together with overall performance, these experiments provide an objective means to contrast different modes of robot autonomy and to evaluate both the usability of the interface and the effectiveness of autonomous robot behavior. The first experiment compares the performance achieved when the robot takes initiative to support human driving with the opposite case when the human takes initiative to support autonomous robot driving. The utility of robot autonomy is shown through achievement of better performance when the robot is in the driver's seat. The second experiment introduces a virtual three-dimensional (3-D) map representation that supports collaborative understanding of the task and environment. When used in place of video, the 3-D map reduced operator workload and navigational error. By lowering bandwidth requirements, use of the virtual 3-D interface enables long-range, nonline-of-sight communication. Results from the third experiment extend the findings of experiment 1 by showing that collaborative control can increase performance and reduce error even when the complexity of the environment is increased and workload is distributed amongst multiple operators.

High-school robotics competitions of all sorts are hugely popular. Robotics courses are now being widely taught in colleges and universities. Commercial applications of robotics are growing, as it becomes practical to deploy autonomous systems in the real world. Despite the activity in each of these areas, there is a lack of continuity between them. In this paper, we describe our plans for a novel outreach and education program that attempts to bridge between the worlds of high-school, university, and research laboratory robotics.

Use of new robotics technologies is challenged by issues of system trust, unknowns regarding how the system will, can, and should be used, and possibilities for human error that may cause harm to the human operator, system, or environment. This paper discusses initial usability tests of a mixed-initiative robotic system. Participants were asked to search a building using a robot equipped with multiple levels of autonomy to identify 3 targets in pre-specified locations. The experiment showed a significant difference between novice and experienced robotic operators especially regarding willingness to use the autonomous capabilities of the robot. Users unfamiliar with teleoperation were more willing to utilize the autonomous capabilities of the robot, while skilled teleoperators preferred and were more efficient when in direct control. Users were almost always able to successfully complete the search task. However, feedback indicates that users, having been given only a cursory explanation of the system, were sometimes confused by robot initiative even though the interface supplied textual explanations. The experiment shows that mixed-initiative interaction may exceed the limitations of either fully autonomous or teleoperated control; however, potential benefits can easily be overshadowed by control challenges inherent to deploying robot-human teams.