Function-Based Interface for Task Delegation in Human Supervision of an Agent Team

在管理一个机器人团队时，操作员的任务不仅是操纵每个机器人，而且要实现分配给整个团队的人和机器人的最高目标。支持人工操作员，使他们能够通过以系统为中心的视图了解工作的总体进展和情况，这是至关重要的。本研究的主要目标是开发一种基于生态界面设计（EID）的设计概念，用于人类监督机器人团队，提供实现人机系统最高目标所必需的功能状态信息。提出了一种概率仿真方法来估计操作人员的行为，作为评估多机器人操作人机界面的工具。通过其应用，从操作人员认知负荷指标的角度考察了不同设计方案的优势和成本。基于功能的人机界面通过实验试验台仿真，揭示了人机界面的基本功效。使用抽象分解空间识别功能信息，抽象分解空间是表示人机系统中工作的功能结构的框架。将人机协作的信息以EID概念为基本框架实现到界面显示中。统计数据分析的结果除了对操作人员进攻任务的性能因子的影响外，并不能反映界面设计的效果。然而，策略的发现和对修改界面有用性的主观评估表明，所提出的界面设计可能有能力为多个自主机器人提供有效的人类监督。还建议，对功能显示的需求密切取决于实际操作中使用的策略。

When supervising a team of robots, the operator's task is not only the manipulation of each robot but also achievement of the top goal that is assigned to the entire team of humans and robots. It is crucial to support human operators to enable them to understand the overall progress in the work and the situation via a system-centered view. A main goal of this study is development of a design concept based on Ecological Interface Design (EID) for human supervision of a robot team, providing information about states of functions that are necessary to achieve the top goal of a human-robot system.1. A probabilistic simulationA probabilistic simulation method was developed to estimate behaviors of human operators as a tool for evaluating human-robot interfaces for operation of multiple robots. Through its application, advantages and costs of different design alternatives has been investigated in terms of cognitive workload indexes of the human operators.2. Function-based human-robot interfaceAn experimental study was conducted to reveal basic efficacy using an experimental test-bed simulation. Information on function is identified using the Abstraction-Decomposition Space, which is a framework for representing the functional structures of work in a human-machine system. The information about a human-robot team work was implemented into an interface display using the EID concept as the basic framework.The results of the statistical data analysis cannot reveal the efficacy of the interface design, except the effect on a performance factor for operator's offensive task. However, the findings of the strategies and subjective evaluations of the usefulness of the modified interface suggest that the proposed interface design may have the ability to provide effective human supervision of multiple autonomous robots. It is also suggested that the need for a functional display closely depends on the strategies actually used during operations.