Cooperation between the human operator and the multi-agent robotic system: evaluation of agent monitoring methods for the human interface system

Abstract

This paper first discusses the relation between the human operator and the decentralized autonomous robotic system. The operator relates himself to the system loosely in the decentralized autonomous system. The authors position the operator as a problem solver and a monitor of the system. The human operator is regarded as an agent in the decentralized autonomous robotic system. Then strategies of communication between the human operator and agents are discussed. The authors propose explicit and implicit communication strategies to monitor the system, and several monitoring methods to implement them: time-based and event-based monitoring for explicit communication and eavesdropping messages for implicit communication. The authors compare the monitoring methods in order to ascertain how much information the human operator can gather in each method using simulation. Finally, the characteristics of each monitoring method are analyzed.