Student: Paulo
Gonçalves de Barros
Committee:
Prof. Robert Lindeman,
WPI CS Dept.
Prof. Matthew Ward, WPI CS Dept.
Prof. David
Brown, WPI CS Dept.
Prof. Michael Goodrich, BYU CS Dept.
Date:
Robot teleoperation interfaces comprise of a multitude of information about different robot sensors states. They range from audio and video feeds to CO2 and temperature sensors. Such information is generally displayed in a visual form. The resulting visually cluttered interface designs tend to overload the operator’s visual perception, increasing his cognitive load and leading to suboptimal performance.
This research aims at improving the interface used for robot-teleoperation in the context of urban search-and-rescue (USAR). Our solution is to evaluate the impact of different multi-sensory feedback interfaces on task performance. It will allow us to find better interface mappings for the robot sensors for the search and rescue task. The senses used in the multi-sensory interface will be vision, hearing, and touch. The evaluation of the interface designs will be done using virtual environment using the standard robotics community simulator USARSim.
We expect that the two experiments described below will lead to user optimized multi-modal interface design for USAR tasks. The research steps to be performed are the following:
1. C Term 2012 (up to March 12th): Finishing up readings on different areas of research and user study design.
2. D Term 2012 (up to May 31st): User study coding and running.
3. Summer 2012 (up to August 22nd): Framework implementation and integration with robot. Pilot study with experts.
4. A Term: 2012 (up to October 11th): Writing dissertation.
5. B Term 2012 (up to December 13th): Dissertation defense, corrections and graduation.
Log of activities: