Interfaces for Generating Flow in Teleoperation: game-based interaction design to improve teleoperator engagement and focus

远程操作界面使人们能够远程控制机器人完成各种任务，如拍摄、消防、工业设备检查和维护。这可以实现更高的可及性(例如，不需要工作的身体健康)和安全性(例如，社交距离)。然而，从长远来看，遥操作仍然很难安全地进行，高达70%的事件可归因于人为错误：机器人控制和传感器显示的困难将导致操作员误解机器人的情况或如何控制它，导致碰撞、操作员压力或其他事件。遥操作界面需要更好地设计来支持操作员-以减少压力并提高关注度以减少错误。我建议建立接口，以鼓励增加远程操作员的关注度、参与度和进步感，即一种流畅的状态，俗称为“在区域中”。心流的好处将有助于改善操作员的表现和减轻压力，但目前尚不清楚如何设计界面来鼓励远程操作中的心流。心流理论研究发现，将一个人的技能与适当的挑战水平相匹配，可以帮助鼓励一种心流状态。在视频游戏等虚拟环境中，可以通过校准虚拟挑战的难度来设计心流，但在现实世界和不受控制的动态情况下，心流状态可能很难创建和维护。需要新的研究来理解现有的完全虚拟的视频游戏技术如何适应远程操作的现实世界的限制，以及如何创造新的技术来改善远程操作员的安全和健康。我的团队的短期目标是设计能够利用远程操作中流的好处的技术-我们将通过调查如何构建、呈现和校准运营商的挑战，如何承认和奖励克服这些挑战，以及如何动态测量流来实现这一点。在这项研究中，我的总部将培养界面设计、评估、机器人技术方面的技能，与尖端平台合作，并在领先的国际场所发表文章。我的研究计划的长期目标是建立支持遥操作性能的接口，并通过塑造操作员体验来减少压力。拟议的研究将努力实现这一目标，开发界面，鼓励操作员流动以提高关键任务的性能，并改变操作员体验长时间远程操作会话的方式(通过增加参与度和关注度)和思考工作(通过实现进步感)。随着远程控制机器人越来越多地应用于家庭和工作场所，这项工作将与整个消费、工业和紧急应用中的远程控制应用相关。我的工作将提高机器人技术的可及性、长期使用、安全性和性能。

Teleoperation interfaces enable people to remotely control robots to accomplish a variety of tasks such as filming, firefighting, industrial equipment inspection, and maintenance. This can enable increased accessibility (e.g., not requiring physical fitness for a job) and safety (e.g., social distancing). However, teleoperation remains difficult to do safely in the long-term, with up to 70% of incidents attributed to human error: difficulties in robot control and sensor displays will result in operators misunderstanding the robot's situation or how to control it, causing collisions, operator stress, or other incidents. Teleoperation interfaces need to be better designed to support operators - to reduce stress and improve focus to reduce errors. I propose to build interfaces to encourage increased teleoperator focus, engagement, and sense of progression, that is, a state of flow, colloquially referred to as being "in the zone." The benefits of flow would help improve operator performance and lower stress, but it is not immediately clear how to design interfaces that encourage flow in teleoperation. Flow theory research has found that matching a person's skill to an appropriate level of challenge can help encourage a state of flow. In virtual settings like video games, flow can be designed for by calibrating the difficulty of the virtual challenges, but in real world and uncontrolled dynamic situations, a state of flow can be difficult to create and maintain. New research is required to understand how existing fully-virtual video game techniques could be adapted to the real-world constraints of teleoperation, and how new technologies can be created to improve the safety and health of teleoperators. My short-term objective for my team is to design techniques that can leverage the benefits of flow in teleoperation - we will do this by investigating how to structure, present, and calibrate challenges for operators, how to acknowledge and reward overcoming those challenges, and how to measure flow dynamically. During this research my HQPs will develop skills in interface design, evaluation, robotics, work with cutting-edge platforms, and publish at leading international venues. The long-term objective of my research program is to build interfaces that support teleoperation performance and reduce stress by shaping operator experience. The proposed research will work towards this goal by developing interfaces that encourage operator flow to improve performance in critical tasks, and that change how operators experience long teleoperation sessions (by increasing engagement, focus) and think about their work (by enabling a feeling of progress). This work will be relevant to remote control applications throughout consumer, industry, and emergency applications as remote-controlled robots become increasingly available in homes and workplaces. My work will increase accessibility, long-term use, safety, and performance in robotic technology.