ABSTRACT

Human-robot interaction (HRI) is a relatively new field of study. To date, most of the effort in robotics has been spent in developing hardware and soft­ware that expands the range of robot functionality and autonomy. In contrast, little effort has been spent so far to ensure that the robotic displays and interac­tion controls are intuitive for humans. This study applied robotics, human-computer interaction (HCI), and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) expertise to gain experience with HCI/CSCW evaluation techniques in the robotics domain. As a case study for this article, we analyzed four differ­ent robot systems that competed in the 2002 American Association for Artificial Intelligence Robot Rescue Competition. These systems completed urban search and rescue tasks in a controlled environment with predetermined scor­ing rules that provided objective measures of success. This study analyzed pre-evaluation questionnaires; videotapes of the robots, interfaces, and opera­tors; maps of the robots’ paths through the competition arena; post-evaluation debriefings; and critical incidents (e.g., when the robots damaged the test arena). As a result, this study developed guidelines for developing interfaces for HRI.