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Towards Human-Friendly Efficient Control of Multi-Robot TeamsThis paper explores means to increase efficiency in performing tasks with multi-robot teams, in the context of natural Human-Multi-Robot Interfaces (HMRI) for command and control. The motivating scenario is an emergency evacuation by a transport convoy of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) that have to traverse, in shortest time, an unknown terrain. In the experiments the operator commands, in minimal time, a group of rovers through a maze. The efficiency of performing such tasks depends on both, the levels of robots' autonomy, and the ability of the operator to command and control the team. The paper extends the classic framework of levels of autonomy (LOA), to levels/hierarchy of autonomy characteristic of Groups (G-LOA), and uses it to determine new strategies for control. An UGVoriented command language (UGVL) is defined, and a mapping is performed from the human-friendly gesture-based HMRI into the UGVL. The UGVL is used to control a team of 3 robots, exploring the efficiency of different G-LOA; specifically, by (a) controlling each robot individually through the maze, (b) controlling a leader and cloning its controls to followers, and (c) controlling the entire group. Not surprisingly, commands at increased G-LOA lead to a faster traverse, yet a number of aspects are worth discussing in this context.
Document ID
20150007482
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Stoica, Adrian
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Theodoridis, Theodoros
(Essex Univ. Colchester, United Kingdom)
Barrero, David F.
(Alcala de Henares Univ. Madrid, Spain)
Hu, Huosheng
(Essex Univ. Colchester, United Kingdom)
McDonald-Maiers, Klaus
(Essex Univ. Colchester, United Kingdom)
Date Acquired
May 6, 2015
Publication Date
May 20, 2013
Subject Category
Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence And Robotics
Meeting Information
Meeting: 2013 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS 2013)
Location: San Diego, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: May 20, 2013
End Date: May 24, 2013
Sponsors: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Association for Computing Machinery
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: EP/K004638
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
multi-robot control
adaptive autonomy
sliding autonomy
robot languages
human-robot interfaces

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