REU Site: Collaborative Human-Robot Interaction for Robots in the Field

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This Research Experiences for Undergraduates site will develop and evaluate robotic systems whose function is to help bridge the human-robot collaboration gap and achieve objectives efficiently and effectively. Human-robot interaction research has the potential to affect several real-world challenges of operating autonomous systems in environments outside of a traditional lab setting where robots are uniquely able to assist a human team member to achieve a common goal. However, there are many challenges for effective human-robot collaboration that impinge on this promise, such as communicating with human partners using natural language, providing information to an operator through a visual interface, or quickly providing information so that a person is able to offer assistance. The site will develop new autonomous robot capabilities and supporting network and data science technology to address real-world challenges of operating autonomous systems in hospital, clinic, home, and infrastructure environments. Students will develop domain knowledge, mathematical skills, and interdisciplinary competency. The summer activities for undergraduates will provide hands-on science and engineering activities related to current research projects, and professional development with training sessions on writing a graduate school application and how to apply for fellowships to support graduate education. This REU site links projects together through the common objective of developing assistive technology that can be used in the field. The project team will mentor 10 undergraduates each summer, pursuing research directly impacting the following technical challenges: development of autonomous robot capabilities targeted for care environments, such as networked robotics devices cooperating with care professionals to perform complex tasks in support of aging in place; human command-and-control infrastructure for operations that utilize robots for technology support; and connectivity and security for a network of robots, computers, and embedded devices collectively used to address mission-critical goals while utilizing unused parts of the wireless spectrum. The site combines five projects related to these computing domains: socially appropriately navigating in public spaces; understanding user comfort through interactions; tightly-coupled collaborative human-robot teams; efficient collaboration with remotely-situated agents; and first-responder search and rescue operations with human-robot intertwined networks. Intellectual results may include discoveries about long-term human-robot interaction, wireless networking for challenging signal environments, autonomous robot capabilities for human-robot teaming, and data science tools for processing high volumes of data from real-world systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.