There is a growing need to develop effective interaction methods that enable a single operator to manage a team of multiple robots. This paper presents a novel approach that involves treating the team as a moldable volume, in which deformations of the volume correspond to changes in team shape. The team possesses a level of autonomy that allows the team to travel to and surround buildings of interest in a patrol and cordon scenario. During surround mode, the operator explores or manipulates the team shape to create desired formations around a building. A spacing interaction method also allows the operator to adjust how robots are spaced within the current shape. Separate haptic feedback is developed for each method to allow the operator to "feel" the shape or spacing manipulation. During travel mode, the operator chooses desired travel locations and receives feedback to help identify how and where the team travels. Results from a user study suggest that haptic feedback significantly improves operator performance in a reconnaissance task when task demand is higher, but may slightly increase operator workload. In the context of the experimental setup, these results suggest that haptic feedback may contribute to heads-up control of a team of autonomous robots. There were no significant differences in levels of situation awareness due to haptic feedback in this study.

Robots appear to be engaging to many children with autism, and evidence suggests that engagement can facilitate social interaction not only between child and robot but also between child and another human. To date, no objective evidence has established a link between short-term child-robot interactions and long-term child-human interactions. We report on a therapy model that uses a robot in no more than 20% of available therapy time, and describe how a humanoid robot can be used during that limited time to promote generalizable child-human interactions. Preliminary evidence indicates that such low-dose robotics can promote positive child-human interactions.

Aerial recovery of autonomous micro air vehicles (MAVs) presents many unique challenges due to the difference in size and speed of the recovery vehicle and MAV. This paper presents algorithms to enable an autonomous MAV to estimate the orbit of a recovery vehicle and track the orbit until the final docking phase. Several algorithms are presented, which are shown to be robust and computationally inexpensive. Methods for estimating ellipses that are rotated out of the x-y plane are developed and demonstrated through simulation. An algorithm to enable the MAV to track the recovery vehicle's orbit, based on the vector field approach, is also presented.

Recent research suggests that children with autism exhibit certain positive social behaviors while interacting with robots that are not observed while interacting with their peers, caregivers, and therapists. This paper explores trends in robot-assisted autism therapy, as well as some of the specific therapies that have been shown to elicit desirable social interactions when working with children with autism. Considerations for the design of robots for use in robot-assisted therapies are also presented. Finally, general conclusions and recommendations are made to help further the work of robot-assisted autism therapy.

Quadrotors are well-suited for indoor flight because of their ability to hover and maneuver in confined spaces. However, remote operation of these vehicles is challenging because of the loss sensory perception. This paper presents methods for using force feedback exerted by the command input device on the hand of the pilot to assist in avoiding collisions while navigating in a 3D indoor environment. Three algorithms for calculating the feedback forces are presented and tested in simulation-based user studies. The force feedback and control system is demonstrated by piloting a physical quadrotor in an indoor environment.

Robot-based autism therapy is a rapidly developing area of research, with a wide variety of robots being developed for use in clinical settings. Specific, detailed requirements for robots and user interfaces are needed to provide guidelines for the creation of robots that more effectively assist therapists in autism therapy. This paper enumerates a set of requirements for a clinical humanoid robot and the associated human interface. The design of two humanoid robots and an intuitive and flexible user interface for use by therapists in the treatment of children with autism is described.

Research has shown that people are able to judge distances accurately in full-cue, real-world environments using visually directed actions. However, in virtual environments viewed with head-mounted display (HMD) systems, there is evidence that people act as though the virtual space is smaller than intended. This is a surprising result given how well people act in real environments. The behavior in the virtual setting may be linked to distortions in the available visual cues or to a person's ability to locomote without vision. Either could result from issues related to added mass, moments of inertia, and restricted field of view in HMDs. This article describes an experiment in which distance judgments based on normal real-world and HMD viewing are compared with judgments based on real-world viewing while wearing two specialized devices. One is a mock HMD, which replicated the mass, moments of inertia, and field of view of the HMD and the other an inertial headband designed to replicate the mass and moments of inertia of the HMD, but constructed to not restrict the field of view of the observer or otherwise feel like wearing a helmet. Distance judgments using the mock HMD showed a statistically significant underestimation relative to the no restriction condition but not of a magnitude sufficient to account for all the distance compression seen in the HMD. Indicated distances with the inertial headband were not significantly smaller than those made with no restrictions.

Accurate models of the feel of physical objects are essential to improving the realism of haptic simulations. This paper presents a method for automatically obtaining experimentally based models of general passive, nonlinear devices for use in haptic playback applications, with specific emphasis on modeling switches and buttons. The method, based on the exponentially weighted least-squares (EWLS), allows estimation of position- and direction-dependent parameters of a general nonlinear model. Results are presented for two push-button switches.