Team meetings for Fall 2009 will be Thursdays from 4-5 PM in CIS Library.

We will have a phone conversation every other week. The CIS Library phone number is (785) 532-7787.

NEWS:

We are currently pursing a simulated approach and focusing on adding robustness to existing scenario.

Overview:

Semi-autonomous robot teams are currently being proposed for dangerous missions including weapons employment, minefield operations, reconnaissance/surveillance, force protection, ordnance detection/clearance, and urban warfare. Experimental ground robots such as the Dragon require one operator per robot while more sophisticated UAVs require multiple operators due to the concurrent demands of control, monitoring and decision-making. Kansas State University, together with Vanderbilt University, have been working on key technologies to overcoming this problem. The main objective of this project is to develop the technology to allow a small number (one or more) of operators to a control multiple teams of robots in a variety of applications and to demonstrate this technology in one or more application areas.  This technology will be able to be widely applied to multiple situations where human operators need to provide oversight and control of teams of semi-autonomous robotic vehicles.

The technical basis of our approach requires integration of two technologies: organizational control and multiple robot-human interactions. Our organizational control approach is based on the organizational model of teamwork and is under development by Dr. DeLoach? and Dr. Gustafson. A third member of this research team, Dr. Julie Adams at Vanderbilt University, is currently studying multiple robot-human interaction techniques. DeLoach? created an organizational model that defines the elements of adaptive, goal-oriented teams. With this information, robot teams can organize at runtime to achieve its goals in the most effective and efficient manner. Adams has been involved in developing interfaces that allow a human operator to control teams of robots. 

The effectiveness of this approach will be demonstrated in a two-phase approach.  We are currently developing simulated and real-world demonstration prototypes to allow a team of cooperative robots to perform a battlefield reconnaissance mission.  The goal of Phase I is to integrate a human into the cooperative robotic team to allow the human to control the team as a supervisor using organizational control.  This requires extending DeLoach?’s organization model to allow capturing different types of user roles and capabilities and the development of techniques for providing appropriate human-robot interaction techniques. New capabilities must also be developed for the real-world robots in vision processing, multiple sensors, and interaction with humans in performance of the search, monitor and detect activities. In Phase II, the organizational control will be implemented and demonstrated using all terrain research robots in a more realistic setting with the role of humans being expanded to include that of operator and as a peer.