Human–Robot Interaction in Rescue Robotics

TLDR

Rescue robotics has been identified by a DARPA/NSF study as a key application domain for human‑robot integration research. The paper offers a concise tutorial on current robot use in urban search and rescue and reviews key HRI challenges over the past eight years. The authors formulate a domain theory comprising a workflow model of robot‑assisted search tasks and a general information‑flow model that fuses robot data into team knowledge, capturing required situation awareness.

Abstract

Rescue robotics has been suggested by a recent DARPA/NSF study as an application domain for the research in human-robot integration (HRI). This paper provides a short tutorial on how robots are currently used in urban search and rescue (USAR) and discusses the HRI issues encountered over the past eight years. A domain theory of the search activity is formulated. The domain theory consists of two parts: 1) a workflow model identifying the major tasks, actions, and roles in robot-assisted search (e.g., a workflow model) and 2) a general information flow model of how data from the robot is fused by various team members into information and knowledge. The information flow model also captures the types of situation awareness needed by each agent in the rescue robot system. The article presents a synopsis of the major HRI issues in reducing the number of humans it takes to control a robot, maintaining performance with geographically distributed teams with intermittent communications, and encouraging acceptance within the existing social structure.