Terry Fong

About

Terry Fong is a pioneering roboticist whose career spans human-robot interaction, planetary exploration, and autonomous systems. Working primarily at NASA Ames Research Center, Fong has made foundational contributions to how humans collaborate with robots in complex, high-stakes environments — from distant lunar surfaces to close-proximity aerial systems. Fong's most influential work, "Communicating Directionality in Flying Robots" (2015, 189 citations), examined how small aerial robots can signal intent to nearby humans — a critical challenge as drones increasingly enter shared workspaces. His early contribution establishing common metrics for human-robot interaction (2004) helped standardize how researchers measure and evaluate HRI effectiveness, providing the field with essential methodological tools. He also co-organized HRI 2008, one of the field's premier conferences, reflecting his central role in shaping the discipline. On the space exploration front, Fong developed virtual reality teleoperation interfaces as early as 1994 and continued advancing planetary rover simulation and robotic lunar operations for decades. His work on shared mental models (2020) represents a forward-looking approach to genuine human-robot teaming. Across more than 500 combined citations, Fong's research consistently bridges cutting-edge robotics with practical human collaboration, making him an indispensable voice in both space robotics and interactive autonomous systems.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Communicating Directionality in Flying Robots

   189 citations · 2015
2. 2
   Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE international conference on Human robot interaction

   87 citations · 2008
3. 3
   Planetary Rover Simulation for Lunar Exploration Missions

   62 citations · 2019
4. 4
   Robotic Lunar Surface Operations 2

   41 citations · 2020
5. 5
   An Edge-Less Approach to Horizon Line Detection

   32 citations · 2015
6. 6
   Common metrics for human-robot interaction

   32 citations · 2004
7. 7
   Toward Genuine Robot Teammates: Improving Human-Robot Team Performance Using Robot Shared Mental Models

   30 citations · 2020
8. 8
   Socially interactive robots

   28 citations · 2003
9. 9
   VEVI: A Virtual Reality Tool For Robotic Planetary Explorations

   27 citations · 1994
10. 10
    Robotic Lunar Geotechnical Tool

    21 citations · 2010

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links