Mixed-Initiative variable autonomy for remotely operated mobile robots

Abstract

This paper presents an Expert-guided Mixed-Initiative Control Switcher (EMICS) for remotely operated mobile robots. The EMICS enables switching between different levels of autonomy during task execution initiated by either the human operator and/or the EMICS. The EMICS is evaluated in two disaster response inspired experiments, one with a simulated robot and test arena, and one with a real robot in a realistic environment. Analyses from the two experiments provide evidence that: a) Human-Initiative (HI) systems outperform systems with single modes of operation, such as pure teleoperation, in navigation tasks; b) in the context of the simulated robot experiment, Mixed-Initiative (MI) systems provide improved performance in navigation tasks, improved operator performance in cognitive demanding secondary tasks, and improved operator workload compared to HI. Results also reinforce previous human-robot interaction evidence regarding the importance of the operator's personality traits and their trust in the autonomous system. Lastly, our experiment on a physical robot provides empirical evidence that identify two major challenges for MI control: a) the design of context-aware MI control systems; and b) the conflict for control between the robot's MI control system and the operator. Insights regarding these challenges are discussed and ways to tackle them are proposed.