EAGER: Collaborative Research: Exploring Models for Conveying Imminent Robot Failures to Allow for Human Intervention

在这项探索性研究中，PI将寻求推进关于如何最好地将机器人即将发生的故障传达给人类（无论是操作员，监督员还是旁观者）的科学状态，以允许人类尽可能有效地进行干预以防止故障。该项目有可能大大提高人类在自主机器人和车辆中及其周围的安全性。 具体的目标是发现机器人系统的设计原则，就传达失败，并确定表达失败的方法，使人类作出适当的反应。 研究将集中在三个用例：远程操作，协同定位操作和旁观者交互。 为此，该团队将利用各种机器人来支持不同的应用和运动规模。 可供团队使用的机器人包括小型和中型无人驾驶地面车辆，人类规模的躯干机器人，机器人轮椅，远程呈现机器人和自主吉普车。 项目成果将影响人机交互领域和未来机器人在许多应用领域的使用，特别是那些移动的和操纵机器人，包括自动驾驶汽车，工厂机器人和辅助技术，通过提高生产力和任务性能，提高危险职业工作人员的人身安全，和改善残疾人的生活。PI的核心研究问题是由他们以前的大量工作与面向任务的机器人。 基于这一经验和其他研究，他们认为以下三个主要因素强烈影响机器人故障期间的用户行为：感知风险（例如，频繁碰撞的机器人通常被认为是高风险机器人），感知的严重性（例如，由软材料制成的小型机器人的故障通常被认为没有全身人形机器人的故障严重），以及角色（例如，用户是操作者还是旁观者）。 关于这些因素影响失败的方式的未探索的研究问题包括。 在机器人故障期间，这些因素是如何独立和组合地影响HRI的？ 在机器人故障期间，人类如何利用这些因素，这种利用是否具有高度的可变性，或者人类是否非常一致？ 这些因素将被用作独立变量的研究，这将推进知识在三个核心领域：制定和验证的可推广的定量和定性指标，用于测量一个人的反应，在机器人系统中即将发生的故障;发现适当的方式来沟通故障状态给人类;和处理故障的共同设计准则的初步发展。 其主要目标是使人类更容易快速理解故障事件，并及时采取适当行动或提供帮助。 PI特别关注机器人故障的人机交互方面。 因此，他们将跟踪有关故障诊断的文献和研究，但不会为这一步开发新的系统或概念。 相反，团队将寻求适当和有效的方法来向人类传达失败，失败期间适当的人类反应，以及当人类行动不可能或不充分时适当的失败状态。

In this exploratory research, the PIs will seek to advance the state of the science on how best to convey a robot's imminent failure to a human (whether an operator, supervisor, or bystander), in a manner that could allow the human to intervene as effectively as possible to prevent the failure. This project has the potential to dramatically increase the safety of humans in and around autonomous robots and vehicles. Specific goals are to discover design principles for robot systems with respect to conveying failure, and to identify methods for expressing failure so that humans react appropriately. The research will focus on three use cases: remote operation, co-located operation, and bystander interaction. To these ends, the team will utilize a variety of robots in order to support different applications and movement scales. Robots available to the team include small and mid-size unmanned ground vehicles, human-scale torso robots, a robot wheelchair, a telepresence robot, and an autonomous Jeep. Project outcomes will impact the field of human-robot interaction and the future use of robots in many application domains, particularly those of mobile and manipulation robots, including autonomous vehicles, factory robots, and assistive technology, by enhancing productivity and task performance, increasing personal safety for those who work in hazardous occupations, and improving the lives of persons with disabilities.The PIs' core research questions are informed by their substantial prior work with task-oriented robots. Based on that experience and other studies, they argue that the following three main factors strongly influence user actions during robot failure: perceived risk (e.g., a robot that crashes frequently is generally perceived as a high risk robot), perceived severity (e.g., the failure of a small robot made of soft materials is generally perceived as less severe than that of a full body humanoid robot), and role (e.g., is the user an operators or a bystander). Unexplored research questions about the manner in which these factors impact failure include. How do these factors, both independently and in combination, influence HRI during robot failures? How do humans utilize these factors during robot failure, and does this utilization have high variability or are humans very consistent? These factors will be used as independent variables during studies which will advance knowledge in three core areas: formulation and validation of generalizable quantitative and qualitative metrics for measuring a person's response to an imminent failure in a robot system; discovery of appropriate ways to communicate failure states to humans; and initial development of common design guidelines for handling failures. The primary goal is to make it easier for humans to rapidly understand failure events and to act or assist appropriately in a timely manner. The PIs are specifically focused on the human-robot interaction aspect of robot failures. As such, they will track literature and research on diagnosing failures, but will not develop new systems or concepts for this step. Instead, the team will seek appropriate and effective ways to convey failures to humans, appropriate human responses during failures, and appropriate failure states when human action is not possible or is insufficient.