Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) has recently received considerable attention in the academic community, in labs, in technology companies, and through the media. Because of this attention, it is desirable to present a survey of HRI to serve as a tutorial to people outside the field and to promote discussion of a unified vision of HRI within the field. The goal of this review is to present a unified treatment of HRI-related problems, to identify key themes, and discuss challenge problems that are likely to shape the field in the near future. Although the review follows a survey structure, the goal of presenting a coherent "story" of HRI means that there are necessarily some well-written, intriguing, and influential papers that are not referenced. Instead of trying to survey every paper, we describe the HRI story from multiple perspectives with an eye toward identifying themes that cross applications. The survey attempts to include papers that represent a fair cross section of the universities, government efforts, industry labs, and countries that contribute to HRI, and a cross section of the disciplines that contribute to the field, such as human, factors, robotics, cognitive psychology, and design.

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Human-Robot Interaction: A Survey

The Study of Instinct

Unmanned surface vehicles: An overview of developments and challenges

A control system for a mobile robot ( 10 ) is provided to effectively cover a given area by operating in a plurality of modes, including an obstacle following mode ( 51 ) and a random bounce mode ( 49 ). In other embodiments, spot coverage, such as spiraling ( 45 ), or other modes are also used to increase effectiveness. In addition, a behavior based architecture is used to implement the control system, and various escape behaviors are used to ensure full coverage.

Method and system for multi-mode coverage for an autonomous robot

An autonomous floor-cleaning robot comprising a housing infrastructure including a chassis, a power subsystem; for providing the energy to power the autonomous floor-cleaning robot, a motive subsystem operative to propel the autonomous floor-cleaning robot for cleaning operations, a command and control subsystem operative to control the autonomous floor-cleaning robot to effect cleaning operations, and a self-adjusting cleaning head subsystem that includes a deck mounted in pivotal combination with the chassis, a brush assembly mounted in combination with the deck and powered by the motive subsystem to sweep up particulates during cleaning operations, a vacuum assembly disposed in combination with the deck and powered by the motive subsystem to ingest particulates during cleaning operations, and a deck adjusting subassembly mounted in combination with the motive subsystem for the brush assembly, the deck, and the chassis that is automatically operative in response to an increase in brush torque in said brush assembly to pivot the deck with respect to said chassis. The autonomous floor-cleaning robot also includes a side brush assembly mounted in combination with the chassis and powered by the motive subsystem to entrain particulates outside the periphery of the housing infrastructure and to direct such particulates towards the self-adjusting cleaning head subsystem.

Autonomous floor-cleaning robot

The paper describes a new sun sensor for absolute heading detection developed for the Field Integrated, Design and Operations (FIDO) rover. The FIDO rover is an advanced technology rover that is a terrestrial prototype of the rovers NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) plans to send to Mars in 2003. Our goal was to develop a sun sensor that fills the current cost/performance gap, uses the power of subpixel interpolation, makes use of current hardware on the rover, and demands very little computational overhead. The need for a sun sensor on planetary rovers lies in the fact that current means of estimating the heading of planetary rovers involves integration of noisy rotational-speed measurements. This noise causes error to accumulate and grow rapidly. Moreover, the heading error affects the estimate of the x and y position of the rover. More importantly, incremental odometry heading estimation is only reliable over relatively short distances. There is an urgent need to develop a new heading-detection sensor for long traverses [for example, 100 m per Sol (Martian Day)], as requested for future Mars mission. Results of a recent FIDO field trial at Black Rock Summit in Central Nevada and several operations readiness tests at the JPL MarsYard using the sun sensor have demonstrated threefold to fourfold improvement in the heading estimation of the rover compared to incremental odometry.

https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/publications/Terrance_Huntsberger/IEEETRA_Sun.pdf

Design and analysis of a sun sensor for planetary rover absolute heading detection

This paper describes recent work undertaken at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA in the area of increased rover autonomy for planetary surface operations. The primary vehicle for this work is the Field Integrated, Design and Operations (FIDO) rover. The FIDO rover is an advanced technology prototype that is a terrestrial analog of the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) being sent to Mars in 2003. We address the autonomy issue through improved integration of rover based sensing and higher level onboard planning capabilities. The sensors. include an inertial navigation unit (INU) with 3D gyros and accelerometers, a sun sensor, mast and body mounted imagery, and wheel encoders. Multisensor fusion using an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) approach coupled with pattern recognition and tracking algorithms has enabled the autonomy that is necessary for maximizing science data return while minimizing the number of ground loop interactions. These algorithms are coupled with a long range navigation algorithm called ROAMAN (Road Map Navigation) for an integrated approach to rover autonomy. We also report the results of algorithm validation studies in remote field trials at Black Rock Summit in Central Nevada, California's Mojave Desert, and the Arroyo Seco at JPL.

https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Edward_Tunstel/FIDO_ICRA2002.pdf

Rover autonomy for long range navigation and science data acquisition on planetary surfaces

The objective of the Robot Work Crew (RWC) project is to investigate key challenges in multi-robot coordination when performing tightly coupled coordination tasks such as transporting and handling of long objects on challenging planetary terrain. In this paper, we focus on tightly coupled coordination of two Mars rovers transporting a long payload. We have developed practical decentralized compliancy control and coordinated comply control algorithms that effectively address compliant control for compliantly coupled multiple mobile robots. Experiments at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA of two Mars rovers carry an extended payload over uneven, natural terrain are used to validate and illustrate the approach.

Mars rover pair cooperatively transporting a long payload

Infrastructure support for robotic colonies, Mars habitat for humans, and/or robotic exploration of planetary surfaces will need to rely on the field deployment of multiple robust robots. This support includes such tasks as the deployment and servicing of power systems and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) generators, establishing long-life robotic science stations for measurement and communications, construction of beaconed roadways, and the site preparation and deployment of human habitat modules. Precursor robotic missions to Mars that involve teams of multiple cooperating robots to accomplish some of these tasks is a cost effective solution to the possible long timeline necessary for the deployment of a human habitat. Ongoing work at JPL in the area of robot colonies is investigating many of the technology developments necessary for such an ambitious undertaking. Some of the issues that are being addressed include behavior-based control systems for multiple cooperating robots , development of autonomous robotic systems for the repair of disabled robots, and the design and development of robotic platforms for construction tasks such as material transport and surface clearing. This paper presents the results of an examination of requirements for robotic precursor missions to Mars.

Robotics Challenges for Robotic and Human Mars Exploration

The robot construction crew (RCC) is a heterogeneous multi-robot system for autonomous construction of a structure through assembly of long components The two-robot team demonstrates component placement into an existing structure in a realistic environment The task requires component acquisition, cooperative transport, and cooperative precision manipulation A behavior-based architecture provides adaptability The RCC approach minimizes computation, power, communication, and sensing for applicability to space-related construction efforts, but the techniques are applicable to terrestrial construction tasks

Terry Huntsberger

Papers

Design and analysis of a sun sensor for planetary rover absolute heading detection

Rover autonomy for long range navigation and science data acquisition on planetary surfaces

Mars rover pair cooperatively transporting a long payload

Robotics Challenges for Robotic and Human Mars Exploration

Behavior-based multi-robot collaboration for autonomous construction tasks