Multi-Human Multi-Robot Interaction in the Wild

这项研究计划的目标是为智能移动的机器人系统开发新的能力，以与人们在户外工作。最近，在定位和地图绘制方面取得了巨大的进展：机器人现在可以使用激光扫描仪和摄像机绘制非常详细的环境地图。我的目标是开发机器人系统的能力，以（i）在真实的时间内，在小距离和大距离上定位人并跟踪他们在地图上的活动;（ii）与个人和群体进行交互以执行有用的任务。机器人将共同回答这些问题：人在哪里？机器人需要什么帮助？ 该计划将机器人技术（多机器人协调，任务分配，映射，定位和其他状态估计，轨迹规划和人类机器人交互（HRI））与计算机视觉（人类识别和跟踪，活动识别）以及人类行为的研究作为个体和群体。我的团队将使用地面和空中机器人，带有多种传感器模式，主要在户外半结构化环境中和长距离使用。这项工作将在不同的地点完成，包括西蒙弗雷泽大学作为一个城市环境，并在山区，森林和湖泊周围的温哥华。 目前的工作计划将扩展我的实验室在多机器人HRI方面新建立的领先地位，并将其与我的团队以前在简单而强大的多机器人协调，任务分配和能量管理方面的工作联合收割机相结合。我们将这一背景带入环境测绘和监测的主题背景中，观察和理解人们的运动和需求：这些都是无人机的关键应用。我们在所有这些领域都做出了贡献，并寻求将它们整合到一个长期计划中，这将成为我的实验室和加拿大各地团队的一系列合作和项目的基础。这项发现补助金将使我的实验室能够探索核心思想和问题，我们将在具体的研究合作伙伴关系和预商业项目中进一步发展。

The goal of this research program is to develop new capabilites for intelligent mobile robot systems to work with people outdoors. Recently there has been enormous progress in localization and mapping: robots can now make very detailed metric maps of their environment using laser scanners and cameras. My aims are to develop the ability of robot systems to (i) locate people and track their activity on their maps in real time, over small and large distances; and (ii) interact with individual and groups of people to perform useful tasks. Robots will work together to answer these questions: Where are the people? What robot help do they need? This program combines the state-of-the-art in robotics (multi-robot coordination, task allocation, mapping, localization and other state-estimation, trajectory planning, and human robot interaction (HRI)) with computer vision (human recognition and tracking, activity recognition) and the study of human behaviour as individuals and in groups. My team will use ground and air robots, with multiple sensor modalities, mainly outdoors in semi-structured environments and over large distances. The work will be done in various locations including Simon Fraser University as an urban environment, and in the mountains, forests and lakes around Vancouver. This current program of work will extend my lab's newly-established leading position in multi-robot HRI, and combine it with my group's previous work in simple and robust multi-robot coordination, task allocation and energy management. We bring this background into the very-topical context of environmental mapping and monitoring, and observing and understanding the movement and needs of people: these are key applications for Unmanned Air Vehicles. We have made contributions in all these areas and seek to bring them together into a long-term program that will form the basis of a range of collaborations and projects in my lab and with teams across Canada. This Discovery Grant will allow my lab to explore core ideas and problems which we will develop further in specific research partnership and pre-commercial projects.