Mobile, Map-Based Tasking Interface for Human-Robot Interaction

摘要

Effective communication can be critical in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) tasks. Communication is especially important in the case where robots are deployed to assist with disaster relief, emergency response, or military applications that require the reliable and rapid transfer of information. It can also be beneficial, or even required, for a human operator to interact directly with robots in the field. The need to work alongside robots imposes a mobile constraint on the hardware and software that must be used. This work proposes a Communications Mode for a Mobile, Map-Based Tasking Interface (MMBTI) to assist in the transfer of information during mobile Human-Robot Interaction (mHRI) tasks. User input can be crucial to mHRI tasks. Since the user no longer has access to conventional input methods (e.g., a keyboard and mouse), novel interaction methods that utilize finger-based input can be used. In addition, the appropriate display of information must be carefully considered. Since the user is constrained to a mobile device, information will be displayed using smaller screen sizes than a conventional desktop personal computer. Therefore, this work will investigate methods for reducing geospatial (i.e., coordinate based) user input in order to display that information compactly and efficiently. The contribution of this work is two-fold. First, a Communications Mode has been developed in order to assist with mHRI. The Communications Mode attempts to improve usability through a novel presentation of task-specific information within a map-based interface. In order to determine the usefulness of the Communications Mode, it was subjectively and objectively compared to two other methods of conveying task-specific information to a mobile user.