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，而且还要实现分配给整个人类和机器人团队的最高目标。支持人类操作员，使他们能够通过以系统为中心的视图了解工作的整体进展和情况至关重要。本研究的一个主要目标是开发一个基于生态界面设计（EID）的设计概念，用于机器人团队的人类监督，提供有关实现人类-机器人系统的最高目标所必需的功能状态的信息。概率仿真方法被开发来估计人类操作者的行为，作为评估多机器人操作的人机界面的工具。通过其应用，不同的设计方案的优点和成本已被调查的人类操作员的认知负荷指标。基于功能的人机接口进行了实验研究，以揭示使用实验测试台模拟的基本功效。使用抽象分解空间，这是一个框架，用于表示在人机系统中的工作的功能结构的功能上的信息被确定。以EID概念为基本框架，将人机团队合作的信息实现到界面显示中，统计数据分析的结果除了对操作员进攻性任务的性能因素的影响外，并不能揭示界面设计的有效性。然而，修改后的界面的有用性的策略和主观评价的结果表明，所提出的界面设计可能有能力提供有效的多个自主机器人的人类监督。它还建议，功能显示的需要密切取决于在行动中实际使用的战略。

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.