Brenden Keyes's research while affiliated with MITRE and other places

Through our iterative design and testing process, we succeeded in providing a useful surroundings awareness panel that displays accurate data to the user in an easy-to-interpret manner. In the testing for Version 3, the current distance panel was proven to provide faster run times, with fewer collisions than the previous two versions. Our results support the usefulness of the guidelines we followed in the creation of the interface. For example, we fused sensor information to lower the cognitive load on the user. Having the laser and sonar sensor values being displayed in the same distance panel provided users a single interface through which to access distance information. Through an iterative process, we gradually improved the distance panel. This panel rotates when the operator pans the camera, which allows the user to line up the obstacle they see in the video with where it is represented in the distance panel, to help reduce cognitive load. The distance panel also functions as a camera pan indicator. To provide redundant cueing in a location where operators will be naturally focused much of the time, crosshairs are overlaid on the video screen to show the current pan/tilt position of the main camera.

Recent developments in multi-touch technologies have exposed fertile ground for research in enriched human- robot interaction. Although multi-touch technologies have been used for virtual 3D applications, to the authors' knowledge, ours is the first study to explore the use of a multi-touch table with a physical robot agent. This baseline study explores the control of a single agent with a multi- touch table using an adapted, previously studied, joystick- based interface. We performed a detailed analysis of users' interaction styles with two complex functions of the multi- touch interface and isolated mismatches between user expectations and interaction functionality. Author Keywords

This paper describes two steps in the evolution of human-robot interaction designs developed by the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) and the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to support urban search and rescue tasks. We conducted usability tests to compare the two interfaces, one of which emphasized three-dimensional mapping while the other design emphasized the video feed. We found that participants desired a combination of the interface design approaches. As a result, we changed the UML system to augment its heavy emphasis on video with a map view of the area immediately around the robot. We tested the changes in a follow-on user study and the results from that experiment suggest that performance, as measured by the number of collisions with objects in the environment and time on task, is better with the new interaction techniques. Throughout the paper, we describe how we applied human-computer interaction principles and techniques to benefit the evolution of the human-robot interaction designs. While the design work is situated in the urban search and rescue domain, we feel the results can be generalized to domains that involve other search or monitoring tasks using remotely located robots.

Good situation awareness (SA) is especially necessary when robots and their operators are not collocated, such as in urban search and rescue (USAR). This paper compares how SA is attained in two systems: one that has an emphasis on video and another that has an emphasis on a three-dimensional map. We performed a within-subjects study with eight USAR domain experts. To analyze the utterances made by the participants, we developed a SA analysis technique, called LASSO, which includes five awareness categories: location, activities, surroundings, status, and overall mission. Using our analysis technique, we show that a map-centric interface is more effective in providing good location and status awareness while a video- centric interface is more effective in providing good surroundings and activities awareness.

Abstract, This paper studies the impact of camera location and multi-camera fusion with real robots in an urban search and rescue task through two sets of experiments. In the first, we compared a camera with an overhead view to a traditional forward looking camera. In the second, we compared the use of a single forward looking camera to the use of two cameras, one on the front of the robot and one on the rear. Our experiments show that an overhead view that includes the robot chassis significantly increases the situation awareness of the operator as measured by the number of collisions during a maze traversal. We also found that having two cameras, one forward-facing and one rear-facing, results in improved situation awareness. The addition of the rear-facing camera also eliminates many of the collisions that typically occur in the back of the robot when using a single camera.

This paper describes two robot systems designed for urban search and rescue (USAR). Usability tests were conducted to compare the two interfaces developed for human-robot interaction (HRI) in this domain, one of which emphasized three-dimensional mapping while the other design emphasized the video feed. We found that participants desired a combination of the interface design approaches. Additionally, participants desired a combination of the interface design approaches, however, we also observed that sometimes the preferences of the participants did not correlate with improved performance. The paper concludes with recommendations from participants for a new interface to be used for urban search and rescue.

We have been investigating ways to improve human-robot interaction (HRI) and situation awareness (SA) in urban search and rescue (USAR). In this task, a human directs the navigation of a remotely located robot using an interface that provides controls and status information. In this paper, we discuss the many facets of our work aimed at improving HRI for remote robot operation.

Studies of human-robot interaction have shown that operators rely heavily upon the video stream, to the exclusion of all other information on the interface. We have created a new interface that fuses information on and around the video window to exploit this fact.

Recent developments in multi-touch technologies have ex-posed fertile ground for research in enriched human-robot interaction. Although the technologies have been used for virtual 3D applications, to the authors' knowledge, ours is the first study to explore the use of a multi-touch table with a physical robot agent. This baseline study explores the control of a single agent with a multi-touch table using an adapted, previously studied, joystick-based interface. The field test shows that multi-touch interaction does not in any way impair the performance of the user in a navigation and search task. In fact, our results show an increase in learn-ability over the original design using joystick and keyboard-based control mechanisms. Further, we analyzed users' in-teraction styles with the multi-touch interface in detail to isolate mismatches between user expectations and interac-tion functionality.

This paper describes the UMass Lowell entry into the Scavenger Hunt Competition at the AAAI-2005 Robot Competition and Exhibition. The scavenger hunt entry was built on top of the system we have been developing for urban search and rescue (USAR) research. The system includes new behaviors and behavior sequencing, vision algorithms and sensor processing algorithms, all used to locate the objects in the scavenger hunt.