Human Factors in Robots, Drones and Unmanned Systems

AHFE International

Accelerating Open Access Science in Human Factors Engineering and Human-Centered Computing

Human Factors in Robots, Drones and Unmanned Systems

book-cover

Editors: Tareq Ahram, Waldemar Karwowski

Topics: Robots, Drones and Unmanned Systems

Publication Date: 2022

ISBN: 978-1-958651-33-9

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002302

Articles

Assessment of an Intelligent Robotic Rehabilitation Assistant

This paper presents assessment findings of the “i-Walk” robotic rehabilitation assistant. i-Walk provides support to target groups of people with cognitive and/or mobility deficits via a pioneer robotic rollator that utilizes innovation in multimodal robot perception, user-adaptive robot autonomy and natural human-robot interaction. The i-Walk rollator was thoroughly evaluated in terms of its usability and acceptance from its intended end users (patients and therapists) in a rehabilitation centre. i-Walk was tested (i) as a whole, and in terms of (ii) its navigation and human-robot interaction functionalities, (iii) the provided walking support, and (iv) the rehabilitation exercises it offers. In total, twenty-two patients and twelve therapists evaluated the device under real conditions. The paper presents the findings from the evaluation testing of the i-Walk platform. A systematic methodology and protocol were used to test the intelligent robotic rehabilitation assistant in three different scenarios. The PYTHEIA scale was used to evaluate the subjective assessment of the device. With 5 being the highest score and 1 the lowest one, both i-Walk user groups (patients and therapists) rated the device very high to excellent (mean score of therapists = 3,74 and mean score of patients = 4,14). The same holds for the three different functionalities examined (mean score for patients and therapists relevant to: navigation and human-robot interaction support = 4.25 and 4.67; walking support = 4.27 and 4.51; rehab exercises offered = 4,33 and 4,80). As a conclusion, the i-Walk robotic rehabilitation assistant was found very good to excellent in all different domains examined.

Yiannis Koumpouros, Alexandra Karavasili, Petros Maragos, Costas Tzafestas, Evita - Stavroula Fotinea, Eleni Efthimiou, Nikos Papastamatiou, Alexandros Nikolakakis, Effie Papageorgiou

Conference Proceedings

Effects of Social Cues on Robot’s Gaze and Head Rotation on Users’ Perception

The social cues embodied by social robots may greatly affect people’s impressions of them, thereby affecting the human-robot interaction (HRI) experience. This study focuses on the impact of two social cues on participants’ impressions in human societies, i.e., robot eyes blinking and head rotating. The conclusion was generated as follows: (1) The social cues of social robots in specific scenes included rotating head or blinking eyes, can improve participants’ perception of robots on anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability and perceived intelligence. (2) The social cues of robots will attract the attention of visitors to a certain extent, leading them to follow the robot on the tour. (3) At the same time, the ability to attract attention is limited. On the one hand, social robots need to have more social cues to bring people a feeling of being alive and intelligent. On the other hand, according to different usage scenarios, the attributes of social cues should also be different.

Jia Xiaoyu, Chien-Hsiung Chen

Conference Proceedings

Application of Robots for Enhancing Social Presence in Remote Communication Scenarios

The application of robots will be in various situations soon, including the growing need for remote communication accelerated by the COVID-19 epidemic. The usage rate of instant messaging is higher than regular calling, including text, internet calls, and video calls. Since remote communication is now more convenient and more used than before, it is important to make the user experience in remote communication better and clearer. This research aims to design a robot for remote communication to enhance the social presence of remote objects through the interaction between humans and robots and propose a human-robot interaction model based on this purpose. They focus on people’s emotional expressions since one of the most important parts of communication between humans. In order to make it easier for users to accept the robot and have a nice interactive experience with it, the shape of the robot is designed as a beast-like. A bionic quadruped robot that can move flexibly is used as the design prototype, making it possible to adjust the video lens and screen simultaneously and make rich and diverse interactive actions. In this case, the robot would help its user communicate with others, making the user’s emotion expressed appropriately by the robot’s movement, sound, and facial expression. In order to accomplish these functions, the robot should also be able to recognize human facial expressions and body movements by using camera and image recognition; therefore, the robot can react to those inputs.

Chun-Wei Hsu, Chien-Hsu Chen

Conference Proceedings

"Would You be Friends with a Robot?”: The Impact of Perceived Autonomy and Perceived Risk

This paper is aiming to investigate the impact of perceived autonomy and perceived risk on attitudes and opinion about two assistive robots (Paro© and Asimo©), as factors explaining the probability to become “friend” with a robot. The worldwide population of elderly people is growing rapidly and in the coming decades the proportion of older people in the developed countries will change significantly. This demographic shift will create a huge increase in demand for domestic and health-care robotics systems. But the spread of robots in everyday life particularly for purposes of healthcare already gives rise to questions about acceptability, moral and legal responsibility. A robotics system can be powerful and useful, there is not a reason why this system is usable and/or desirable and in fine, accepted. It is still unclear how well these new “faux-people” will be accepted by society, for they raise fundamental questions about what it means to be human, especially at home or in nursing house.METHOD. In a large online survey conducted in France, 2 783 participants (936 adolescents with a mean-age of 12.2 years; 1077 adults with a mean-age of 33.4 years; and 770 seniors with a mean-age of 71.3 years) were asked to complete three questionnaires: (1) The DOSPERT scale (for Domain-Specific Risk-Taking; Blais & Weber, 2006) to assess risk attitude and perception of risks for our participants; (2) The revised version of the FQUA-R scale (for Friendship Quality- Revised; Thien, Razak & Jamil, 2012) to assess close relationships and potential friendship with a robot; (3) The PAS (for Perception of Autonomy Scale; Lombard & Dinet, 2015) to assess positive and negative attitudes towards autonomy of robots. Each participant was asked to complete the three questionnaires twice: before and after viewing two videos showing two assistive robots (Paro© and Asimo©) interacting with human people: In one of the videos, a young woman interacts with the robotic baby-seal Paro©, and gives many explanations about the interests for elderly people (“Paro© gives kindness”, “its allows to create an attachment”). Moreover, we can see an elderly woman who caresses Paro©. In the other video, several physical characteristics of Asimo© are presented (size, weight) and the robot performs several tasks by interacting with a young woman (Asimo© walks, runs, plays football, opens a bottle, serves a glass, etc.).RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. For the two robots, structural equation modelling was used to determine the relationships between all the variables. Results have mainly showed that (i) Perceived risk is mainly and significantly explained by attitudes about risks in health and social domains whatever the gender and the age, and (ii) Perceived autonomy has a direct and positive effect on Friendship quality. In other words, our results tend to confirm that our three factors (perceived risk, perceived autonomy and friendship) are strongly interrelated and should be integrated in studies investigating the acceptability of assistive robots, and confirm that these three factors have different impact according to the physical appearance of the robot (human-like for Asimo© or animal-like shape for Paro©). Industrial and theoretical perspectives are discussed.

Jérôme Dinet

Conference Proceedings

Design, Development and Assessment of a Multipurpose Robotic Assistant in the Field of Cognitive Therapy

Advances in robotics have contributed to the support of different treatments for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) in children around the world. Several studies have developed and used robotic assistants to support these treatments, making robotic assistants a key tool for this purpose. Their results have been promising and have provided insight into what can be leveraged from them for future research. Therefore, this article presents a robotic assistant whose design and functionality can be adapted to support cognitive therapy processes. To test the adaptability of its design, an experiment is performed where some electronic elements are changed and it is verified that the design has changed automatically. A second experiment will test the feasibility of using the same robotic assistant in various types of cognitive therapies by modifying its functionality. The results show that the design of this robotic assistant can be adapted and it is also possible to determine if the new design violates any physical constraints. In addition, the results of the exercise performed previous to a cognitive therapy show positive results and this robotic assistant has been recommended by most therapists to be part of cognitive therapies.

Jonnathan Santiago Berrezueta-Guzman, Stephan Krusche, Luis Serpa-Andrade

Conference Proceedings

Integration of Human Factors in an Automated Driving Supervision System

In the field of transport, the reduction in the number of accidents caused by human error is often put forward as an argument in favor for the deployment of autonomous vehicle (Fagnant, & Kockelman, 2015). However, as long as autonomous vehicles are not capable of handling all driving situations, the human operator remains in the control loop and cooperates with the autonomous system (SAE levels 2, 3, and 4 - scale from 0 to 5 where 5 corresponding to the fully autonomous vehicle). The development of supervision systems could be a means to improve safety in these systems, as it has been the case in other transportation modes such as aviation and railways. Indeed, the supervision of autonomous vehicles (e.g.: shuttle fleet) would enable to secure the operation by anticipating incidents (e.g.: support the driver-system relationship, as an air traffic controller would do for pilots), while guaranteeing the reliability (management of system failures) and regularity of the transportation network. However, for Hoc (2000), automation is nevertheless at the origin of a certain number of deleterious effects on the human operator, such as a loss of expertise and adaptability or a lack or excess of confidence in the system, which can lead to errors. Also, human operators can misuse or abuse the automation technology. (Parasuraman and Riley, 1997). Moreover, in this human-machine cooperation, many effects have been observed such as automation bias and complacency phenomena, which can also lead to accidents (Parasuraman & Manzey, 2010).In the perspective of the literature review, we wish to bring keys elements to the designers to create a safe automated driving system. We anticipate this need through the analysis of work activity and creativity. However, autonomous vehicles not representing a mature technology or having applications in the current society. That requires a projection into a future environment and study of the resulting human factors. Prospective ergonomics (Brangier & Robert, 2014) permits to leads us to deploy that. To anticipate the major functions necessary for the future supervision activity, the approach of the “possible future activity” is applied (Daniellou, 1992). This approach studies the reference situations. We identified many sectors of activity with strong similarities with our system such as aviation, railways, bus or nuclear. Until now, four situations were integrated: the supervision of buses and tramways, the civil air traffic control, and the military air traffic control and the autonomous drone in logistics. These reference situations allowed us to identify their strength and weakness around 7 major components of the supervision (safety, infrastructure, hardware, degree of automation, software, organization of the system and human factor). This step builds prerequisites for the creation of the future supervision system. To integrate and adapt them, the next step will be the realization of creativity workshops which will revolve around expert-staff with the objective of proposing a set of specifications for the designers of the main functions to allow the integration of the human factor from the first phases of implementation in this system.

Jordan Scoliege, Jessy Barre, Philippe Cabon

Conference Proceedings

Experimental Evaluation of Mission-Planning Support in Multi-User Manned-Unmanned Teaming Applications with Shared Unmanned Systems

In this study, we evaluate our work towards sharing unmanned systems among multiple distributed users. We propose a hierarchical approach in which the use of unmanned systems can be requested by secondary users. To support the primary user in managing these requests, we developed a prototype of a planning agent that can generate and evaluate potential solutions that incorporate the request into the mission plan. These solutions can then be provided to support the primary user’s decision-making process. We implemented the planning agent in a helicopter research simulator and validated it with military pilots. Within an experiment, we investigated different configurations that supported the participants on different levels of automation. Results indicate that a higher level of automation caused a positive effect on performance but is accompanied with a loss in situational awareness.

Gunar Roth, Axel Schulte

Conference Proceedings

Facilitating Collaboration Between Humans and Unmanned Heavy Vehicles using Verbal Interaction and Augmented Reality

The development of unmanned self-driving vehicles appears to have great potential to increase safety and transport productivity. In industry, these vehicles are expected to be adopted first in confined contexts (hubs), such as mines. However, there is a need to better understand how to design interaction models to handle complex situations when professional operators interact with such vehicles in collaborative tasks. Research has suggested that verbal communication may facilitate interaction between automated vehicles and humans. Augmented reality (AR) has also been investigated to support operators in various work domains. Overall, research has indicated that these emerging technologies can improve operators’ productivity and safety.ObjectivesThe main study aim was to investigate the potential of verbal interaction and AR to support the user experience and facilitate collaboration between operators and unmanned self-driving heavy vehicles in hub environments. The second aim was to gain better insights into the effects of more social and natural verbal human–machine interaction. The study focused on loading scenarios in two hub types: logistic centers and underground mines.MethodsThe study had 32 participants: 16 forklift operators and 16 rock-loading operators. Two variants of concepts were designed for each hub type. The natural voice interaction (NVI) variant was designed to mimic natural and social verbal interaction between two human operators. In the basic voice interaction (BVI) variant, verbal interaction was kept to a minimum, and the operator controlled the vehicle with short verbal commands. AR was used in both variants to provide visual guidance, for instance how to distribute the load in the vehicle. The concepts were implemented in animated movies in which the operator in the movie collaborated with the unmanned vehicle to prepare and conduct a loading task. The study was conducted using online interviews in which the participants watched the movies. Subjective opinions related to acceptance, work efficiency, and other aspects of the user experience were assessed using rating scales and open-ended questions.Results and discussionOverall, the concepts generated high scores of user expereince and work efficiency in both user contexts. For instance, on a scale of 1 (inefficient) to 7 (efficient), forklift operators’ mean scores were 6.4 for the NVI and 6.4 for the BVI. The results support the use of verbal interaction and AR to facilitate collaboration between human operators and vehicles. The proposed concepts also provide promising examples of interaction models for further investigation and implementation. Interestingly, most forklift operators stated that they trusted the vehicle more in the NVI because the interaction felt, for instance, more human-like and safe. These results indicate the potential to include more natural dialogues when developing future verbal interfaces for human–vehicle collaboration. However, no difference in trust between concept variants was found among the rock loaders. Also, more rock loaders preferred the BVI, and several subjects highlighted that the extensive use of verbal interaction could become a disturbance. These results support the importance of adapting interaction design in future implementations to the needs of specific users to gain high acceptance and productivity.

Johan Fagerlönn, Yanqing Zhang, Lina Orrell, Hanna Rönntoft

Conference Proceedings

Interdependence: A mathematical approach to the autonomy of human-machine systems

We update our theory of interdependence for autonomous human-machine teams operating in open systems (A-HMT-S). In closed systems, desired outcomes can be easily obtained with rational models (e.g., game theory); there, uncertainty can only be studied as part of a system’s internal com-plexity. In hindsight, the problems with closed system models are obvious: they are fragile, hard to replicate, and not generalizable, the latter being the fatal flaw for autonomous human-machine teams and systems. Surprisingly, no amount or aggregation of data from individuals can be recombined to replicate social data. In contrast, with open systems, interdependence theo-ry is state dependent, reactive to every situation and change, especially the environmental and social uncertainty caused by competition or conflict. More important, in contrast to social science’s reliance on the independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) data derived from individuals, interde-pendence theory is generalizable. But before we start, we acknowledge that machine learning is a closed system model, context dependent, and that ex-isting artificial intelligence (AI) models are insufficient to produce auton-omy today. Thus, we built a mathematical model based on first principles around interdependence and applicable to intelligent autonomous teams of any sort. With our model of interdependence, among the results we have found: reactiveness to bistable information requires intelligence, and boundaries as a barrier to impede its unwanted flow; independent infor-mation cannot replicate teammate dependence, effects, nor performance; in-terdependence creates tradeoffs between the structure and performance of autonomous systems, that, as byproducts, affords metrics, deception, sup-pression, and vulnerability, the latter being a new field of research that we have discovered and that is the motivation for innovation, mergers and ac-quisitions. We close with a brief review of future research opportunities.

William Lawless, Donald Sofge

Conference Proceedings

Hazards and Risks of Automated Passenger Ferry Operations in Norway

The objective of this paper is to document experiences of hazard-analysis and risk analysis of automated passenger ferries planned to be operated in sheltered waters in Norway. The operation of autonomous ferries in Norway requires permission from the Norwegian Maritime Authority. This paper aims to describe hazard and risk analyses that address the requirements for operating autonomous and automated ferries. Two cases of automated ferry operations have been explored, both in sheltered water. One case with max 25Pax (persons on board) close to shore (2,5 km), and another case involving fjord crossing with max 130Pax (distance 16 km).The methods suggested have been based on the framework specified by IMO, guidelines for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) trials (MSC.1-Circ.1604) and the Concept of operation (ConOps) guidelines from the Maritime Safety Authority in Norway (SDIR RSV 12-2020). The first step has been to perform a hazard identification (i.e. HAZID analysis) of the two cases of automated passenger ferries in Norway in collaboration with key stakeholders (manufactures, maritime authority, operators and researches). The approach has been based on Action Research, building on industry experience and the risk perception of the stakeholders, through virtual and physical meetings. The hazid has been based on safety critical task analysis, building on prior experience/incidents; review of critical tasks and prioritization of hazards that may impact personnel safety and security. Based on the identified hazards (i.e. top events and initiating events), we have selected design options and "state of the art" solutions that should mitigate and/or reduce consequences of the level of automation that has been chosen for the ferries.We have described the relevant hazards and mitigating actions from an human factors perspective and the possible way forward to realize low- or unmanned passenger ferries in sheltered waters. We have identified five areas of concern together with the stakeholders, i.e.: Fire, Collision/Grounding, Man Overboard, Evacuation, and Sensor Failure. In addition we have described further work to identify gaps in the design with respect to the current rules and the requirements of search and rescue operations concerning the autonomous ferries' capabilities, based on acceptable adaptations as mentioned in IMO Guidelines for the Approval of Alternatives and Equivalents (MSC.1/Circ. 1455).

Stig O Johnsen, Christoph Thieme, Thor Myklebust, Even Holte, Kay Fjørtoft, Ørnulf Jan Rødseth

Conference Proceedings

Predicting Human-System Interaction Risks Associated with Autonomous Systems in Mining

Industry is implementing increasing amounts of automation into operations. The Australian mining industry is no exception as it is introducing autonomous mining vehicles and trains, remote controlled processing plants and the use of drones and robots to do survey and inspection work. Often these technologies are adopted to improve operational efficiencies and to reduce workers' exposure to high risk situations. However, in most mining environments, the adoption of automated technologies has not completely removed humans from the operation. Humans still need to interact with the technology to clean, service and maintain it. Humans also have to perform other tasks in the automated mining environment such as inspection of ground conditions, mapping mining and dump areas, maintaining roads and infrastructure etc. Thus, introducing automation into mining environments has the potential to introduce new and significant human-system interaction safety risks. The emergence of these new safety risks are evident in recent accidents in the mining industry as well as in other industries that have introduced automation. Traditionally, risk based approaches have been used in the Australian mining industry and other industries to identify and treat safety related risks. Such approaches include the use of hazard identification techniques (HAZID), Workplace Risk Assessment and Control (WRAC), Failure Mode and Effects Analysis or Failure Modes and Effects Criticality Analysis (FMEA or FMECA), and Process or Job based Hazard Analysis (PHA or JHA). These traditional techniques have helped reduce fatal and catastrophic incidents in the mining industry but deficiencies in their application has also been highlighted in a number of major accident investigation reports. In addition, recent research has suggested that that traditional risk identification techniques by not be effective for new, software-enabled technologies that are embedded in socio-technical systems with complex or dynamic human-system interactions. In response new socio-technical risk assessment approaches have been develop such as System Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) and Strategies Analysis for Enhancing Resilience (SAfER). However no publications could be found that seek to understand from a end-user perspective the efficacy of the traditional and new techniques in assessing human-system interaction risks associated with the introduction of autonomous and automated technologies in mining environments.To begin to address this gap, research was conducted that sought to answer the question - What combination of risk assessment techniques delivers the most effective means of identifying risks associated with human-system interactions in remote and autonomous mining operations? The research method involved have mining industry professionals trial four techniques - Preliminary Hazard Analysis (HAZID), Failure Mode and Effects Criticality Analysis (FMECA), Strategies Analysis for Enhancing Resilience (SAfER), and System Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) (Systems-theory Method) - in a workshop environment. Three different workshops were conducted each of which focused on a different automated technology. The first focused on identifying human-system interaction safety risks in surface mine automated haulage areas. The second focused on identifying human-system interaction safety risk associated with autonomous longwall mining operations underground. The third focused on human-system interaction safety risks associated with remote controlled operation of ore processing plants. After the workshop trialed each technique, the participants were survey to collect their perceptions of the usability and usefulness of each technique. Results from the participant feedback suggest that each techniques was able to identify potentially hazardous human-system interactions but that each had strengths and weaknesses depending on whether risks were being assessed risks pre or post implementation. A hybrid or combination approach was suggested with further testing of the proposed approach being recommended.

Maureen Hassall, Ben Seligmann, Danellie Lynas, Joel Haight, Robin Burgess-Limerick

Conference Proceedings

Lessons Learned and Future Direction of a Teaming Interface for Unmanned Vehicle Tasks

Having multiple operators requires aspects critical to teaming, such as coordination and team awareness, to be considered during system design. A Task Manager interface was developed that supports shared awareness across team members by summarizing the relative priority, recency, assignment, and completion status of mission tasks. While the original design provided information essential to the operator, evaluation results indicated that critical information needed to be more accessible. Primarily, important unmanned vehicle (UV) task details should be available at the higher level without the need to “drill down” into the task. Evaluation results informed a Task Manager redesign that does not remove any functionality but altered how information is represented. The goal of these modifications is to improve awareness for the UV operators and support more efficient teaming between operator/autonomy teammates. This new design will be evaluated in future research, and those results will then inform future designs using an iterative design and evaluation process.

Elizabeth Frost, Heath Ruff, Kyle Behymer

Conference Proceedings

Challenges in Research Projects on Augmented Reality in the Domain of Mechatronic and Robotic Applications

The team of the Otto Rettenmaier Research Laboratory for Digitalization at Heilbronn University has been working for years on research projects for interaction with robots as well as a mechatronic factory system using augmented reality (and also virtual reality as well as quite simply via mobile devices - keyword BYOD). As AR Device usually a Microsoft Hololens is used, in the VR area a system of HTC Vive is available in the lab. Other mobile devices are smartphones as well as tablets from different manufacturers.A number of different implementation challenges have been identified in the projects, some of which are quite different. As a main issue is certainly the combination of industrial components such as the robots with the systems that are used for the augmented reality applications. The AR applications and systems typically originate from the gaming world and are not aligned with typical industrial communication standards in terms of issues such as data communication and more. As described, one technical hurdle that has emerged is the communication between the interaction devices and the mechatronic systems. In the industrial world - based on the topic of Industry 4.0 and the associated developments - the OPC UA communication architecture has emerged. However, OPC UA -quasi as an industrial standard- is of course established as a standard in entertainment technology.In addition, there are questions about the development environment. This is predetermined on the side of the mechatronic systems by the products from the control technology, but relatively free on the side of the AR/VR applications. The bridge between these worlds must be developed in the projects anyway. The bandwidth of the respective engines for the development of AR/VR applications, on the other hand, is very broad and very dynamic - meaning that the possible range of functions changes with every update.The biggest challenges, however, come from the actual application scenarios based on industrial production. The classical interaction concepts, which are given for example by the respective operating terminals of robots and are known to the user, can only be transferred to the virtual or extended space with great difficulty. Furthermore, the mapping of the actual production environment in the virtual world is of course a very big problem.The article explains the hurdles encountered in the various research projects and the solutions developed in the projects as well as the questions that are still open.

Benedict Bauer, Carsten Wittenberg

Conference Proceedings

Robots in Popular Sciences Compared with their Real Capabilities

In this paper, statements from popular science sources are contrasted with data from primary science articles and studies. It is observed to what extent the opinions and statements of the popular science articles differ from the studies and scientific articles in terms of ethics and acceptance. For this purpose, the field is divided into 4 fields, which are processed independently.To begin with, the industrial robots are examined. These are used in the area of production as well as in the area of maintenance and repair. These robots are able to learn from each other and to work with each other and with humans. Even a tire change can be carried out by an industrial robot today. Likewise, new developments offer construction spaces that are difficult for humans to access. Activities that do not serve industrial production, but rather the performance of services for people and facilities, are carried out by service robots. They are freely programmable motion devices that perform services partially or fully automatically and are used in the areas of care, gastronomy, tourism, as well as private households. In the future, skills such as flexibility and judgment must be perfected. The use of some service robots is already safe for humans. Similar to service robots, social robotics also focuses on interaction between humans and robots. These are sensorimotor robots that can communicate with humans in a social manner. In doing so, they can build social relationships and constantly learn. The social robots are usually in a human-like (humanoid) or animal-like (animaloid) body, but can also be used merely as software. Examples for application are care, therapy and entertainment robots. In addition to the three physical robots, software robots (software bots) are virtual robots used for process automation. They are the result of the application of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which includes various approaches and technologies. They are used in almost every industry. In the following paper, the applications of softwarebots in finance, healthcare, public administration, and law are examined. Only minor discrepancies between the secondary literature studied and the state of the art can be observed in the texts examined.For the industrial robots, no deviations from statements from popular science sources can be found. In the secondary literature, however, these are not found as frequently as the other robot types studied. This is probably since the interested parties tend to be companies that are advertised through other channels. Nevertheless, some publications can be found for the manufacturing and maintenance and repair sectors. The largest application area today is still manufacturing. However, current robot developments offer promising and potential benefits for the maintenance and repair of industrial plants. In comparison, the research on service robots have shown that a variety of characteristics and capabilities are attributed to them in the secondary literature, most of which are consistent with the status quo of service robotics. In the next area examined, social robotics, the claims from the secondary literature, as with the previous robot types, deviate little from the primary scientific facts. In the technical area, the claims of the secondary literature are fundamentally true, although the ability of robots is generalized in some aspects. Softawarebots, on the other hand, are partially distinct from the previously mentioned robots. Especially the terms used for software applications as software bots in popular science articles do not refer to scientific classifications.

Daniel Schilberg, Jelena Borovica, Lea Vianden, Meiko Litzba, Florian Millmann

Conference Proceedings

Analysis of Intelligent Design of Service Robot Based on Intelligent Transformation

Over the past 30 years from the end of the 20th century to the present, service robotics technology has made great progress, and many important results have been achieved in the broad interdisciplinary fields of robot mechanical structure, information transmission and interaction, material science, automation control, sensor technology, etc. . Every breakthrough in key technologies has enabled service robots to develop rapidly in the direction that people expect. With the in-depth development of Internet technology, the comprehensive popularization and promotion of the Internet of Things technology led by 5G. Coupled with the continuous breakthrough of new developments in the field of artificial intelligence, the development of service robots has encountered an unprecedented technological dividend period, and will surely usher in considerable development, becoming an important driving force for the promotion of human civilization and economic development.The rapid development of many advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and 5G communications has directly promoted the rapid development of the robotics industry. Under the impetus of new technologies, service robots closely related to humans are developing rapidly. Service robots are becoming more and more intelligent. In this context, the design principles of service robots, interaction design, service mode design and other related fields are in urgent need of intelligent transformation, and the concept of intelligent design with artificial intelligence as the core has begun to be paid attention to by the academic community.The research on intelligent design in academia is currently mainly in the review stage, and the field of discussion is mainly focused on graphic design. This article hopes to broaden the research field of intelligent design by studying the intelligent design of service robots. At the same time, it provides new ideas and new paradigms for the innovative design of service robots to improve the user experience and service quality of service robots. This research mainly studies the design principles, design goals, interaction design, service mode and design process of existing service robots based on the perspective of intelligent design. This article mainly uses the literature analysis method and the desktop survey method to sort out related theories and design methods and combines specific practical case analysis to make a bold outlook on the intelligent design of service robots to help the intelligent transformation of service robots.In the era of intelligent design, the design principles of service robots are also changing and iterating. First of all, service robots must adapt to their service scenarios. Different service scenarios have different requirements for the function and existence of the product; secondly, Secondly, the interaction design of service robots should be carried out based on user experience, and technology serves as a tool to enhance users’ experience ; the last is the discussion of appearance design principles of service robots. This article takes the LeoBots Scrub Singapore sweeping robot as an example to propose that the appearance design of service robots needs to be developed around safety, emotion and bionics. Intelligent design is guided by traditional design thinking and methods, and conducts big data analysis and intelligent research on the essence, process, thinking and other aspects of industrial design through related design methodology, as the basis for intelligent design to simulate artificial design. The core technical means of intelligent design is artificial intelligence, which is based on big data analysis, combined with artificial intelligence technologies such as machine learning, artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms, and deep learning to achieve the intelligent development of the entire process design.The change of service robot design principles and the addition of intelligent design have changed the design process of service robots. Based on the practical cases of Haier U-BOT robots, this article actively explores the service robot design process under the development trend of intelligent transformation based on intelligent design in order to provide new ideas for the intelligent design of service robots. The intelligent transformation of service robots promotes the development of intelligent design, and intelligent design drives the intelligent transformation of service robots.

Wei Ding, Zhaoyi Li

Conference Proceedings

Learning to Master Robotic Arm Movements with Bimanual Joystick Control: Indicators for Evaluating the Difficulty of Movement Tasks

Manual control of robotic arms is challenging and productive operators require extensive prior training. Effective training should systematically vary the difficulty level of the robot arm motions. This study investigates the extent to which Fitts’ law could define movement difficulty for bimanual controlled movements of robotic arms. Inspired by forestry work-methods, we designed Fitts’ tapping Task to assess the movement time and throughput of ten unskilled participants over nine training sessions. We found that robotic arm movements observe Fitts’ law for reaching in depth but deviate for lateral and concentric movements. In other words, training can utilize Fitts’ law to vary the difficulty of forward robot arm movements. Further studies on the difficulty of lateral and concentric movements are necessary to refine work methods and improve training.

Felix Dreger, Lewis L Chuang, Gerhard Rinkenauer

Conference Proceedings

Assessing Human Factors for Drone Operations in a Simulation Environment

The number of small drones and drone operations is expanding and proliferating tremendously. However, there is a problem. Drones crash. Often. When they do, international studies show that over 70% of the drone crashes can be related to human factors. Combining these two facts, it is clear that - if we want to avoid a massive number of drone incidents in the future – it is required to develop a strategy to incorporate human factors in the drone deployment process and the training of drone pilots. Pilots for regular aircraft or for larger (typically military) drones generally follow extensive simulator training before engaging in any real flight. However, for small rotorcraft, this is much less the case, because it is very difficult to convey a realistic representation to the human sensory system. Both for fixed wing and rotary wing drones, the main problem with current simulator-based pilot training programs is that they are limited to simplistic scenarios (typically flying predefined patterns and practicing take-off and landing operations), without providing much qualitative feedback to the trainee or the supervising entity.In response to these identified shortcomings, we present in this paper a drone operator performance assessment tool, which uses a realistic environment and realistic operational conditions to measure the performance of the drone operator, both in a qualitative and quantitative manner. These metrics can then be used by training responsibles to adapt / adjust the theoretical and practical training courses for drone pilots, such that the curriculum (both the practical and the theoretical courses) can be iteratively optimized to best fit the needs. An important aspect of any qualification assessment procedure is the definition of the test methodologies and of the test scenarios. Within the subject of drone pilot training, these test scenarios are currently most often very limited to simple take-off & landing operations and of following simple patterns in the air. For pilots working in the security sector (military, police, firefighters, civil protection, ...) in tough operating conditions, these highly simplistic scenarios are hardly relevant. Therefore, we also propose a set of standard test methods specifically geared towards the training of drone operators in the security sector.In this paper, we present the architecture of the developed assessment tool, which runs inside a simulation environment, enabling repetitive (statistically relevant) testing in a controlled environment. The simulation engine is based upon the AirSim simulator and uses the UnReal game engine for realistic environmental rendering. Together with the end-users, twenty-two scenarios have been defined within two main mission environments: a mountainous and an urban environment. These scenarios are especially conceived to cover most of the hazards and environmental challenges that end users wanted to test for, the pilot performance capabilities that they wanted to see measured and the human factors that they identified as potentially important influencing factors for pilot performance.

Daniela Doroftei, Geert De Cubber, Hans De Smet

Conference Proceedings

Multidimensional, Intuitive and Augmented Interaction Models for Robotic Surgery

Surgical robotics in operating rooms is an innovative and rapidly evolving field, and performance levels need to be improved. Despite technological advances, there are still many limitations in surgeon-robot interaction, such as the lack of tactile feedback from the surgeon and visualization issues arising from the surgeon's position relative to the operating table. Therefore, among the challenges of robotic surgery is the design of efficient and ergonomic human-machine interaction systems that can improve and enhance the capabilities of the surgeon and the robot (Boyraz et al., 2019) while ensuring risk reduction and high levels of ergonomics and safety. This will improve the surgeon's perception and eliminate possible accidental contact with tissues and injuries. In this scenario, the contribution illustrates the reconnaissance and analysis activities carried out to identify the limitations and advantages of the current interfaces and visualization technologies applied to robotic surgery to verify their usability and the ways of surgeon-robot interaction.

Giovanna Giugliano, Sonia Capece, Mario Buono

Conference Proceedings

Extreme Reality (EXR) Telemetry Interfaces

Extreme Reality (EXR) is an extended augmented reality that incorporates telemetry interfaces that can be operated in live or simulated extreme environments. In this study, we explore a few architectures of EXR, including real-time multimodal first-person view video streaming from the thermal, stereo, and panoramic sources, and incorporate live IoT (Internet of Things) data into extreme reality models via MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport) on an AR headset. This technology can be applied to real-time operations and simulation training for incident command posts (ICP) and first responders with head-up display (HUD) helmets in extreme environments such as flood, fire, smoke, and shooting. It can also be applied to other applications such as the telemetry interface for assisting in training low-vision drivers.

Yang Cai, Haocheng Zheng, Lenny Weiss

Conference Proceedings

Quantifying the Influence of Image Quality on Operator Reaction Times for Teleoperated Road Vehicles

Teleoperated Driving (ToD) is a widely acknowledged concept applied to handle edge-case situations in automated vehicles. In ToD, a human operator judges and resolves these situations based on video streams. Due to varying network coverage, the compression level of these video streams and therefore the resulting image quality (IQ) are adjusted dynamically. In the presented work, the effect of IQ on task performance is investigated. We hypothesize that IQ impacts the operator’s reaction time to dynamic obstacles, and therefore influences safety. We conducted a user study to test this hypothesis. Subjective and objective data were collected. The results reveal that IQ has a significant influence on the operator’s task performance.

Simon Hoffmann, Felix Willert, Markus Hofbauer, Andreas Schimpe, Frank Diermeyer

Conference Proceedings

The Use of Drone Technologies Within the Built Environment of South Africa.

As the 4th Industrial Revolution technologies continue to recast the practices of multiple industries, there is an opportunity for the South African Built Environment to hop on the bandwagon of this technical evolution. Within the country’s-built environment, the focus of the paper was upon reporting on the feasible symbiotic relationship of the construction industry and drone technology.Based on previous literature with regards to drones in the construction industry of South Africa, it was found that many practitioners were eager to investigate the possible use of drones however the main concern was the cost. Therefore, the question of what legal drone and data processing program could feasibly be incorporated by practising professionals into the different construction stages of development was investigated.To produce evidence, results and derive conclusions on the question; an exploratory study of academic journals and articles along with manufacturer specifications was conducted. First off, the paper motivates that through the versatility of drones and the processing programs abilities many current construction practices can become more efficient. It was found though, through interviews with practising professionals, that the only damper on optimising the versatility of drones in South Africa was the legislation.To guide the results of exploration practising professionals were interviewed to provide a baseline on the current use of drones in South Africa. The interviews revealed that before starting to look at a drone, a processing program or the cost thereof the legislation governing drone usage in South Africa must be understood and complied with. Throughout the paper, the legal requirements have been stated to inform the construction industry of these requirements. To follow this, professional drones and data processing programs available and their cost were tabulated to answer the question. However, it was concluded that a drone cannot be limited to a single stage in a construction project because of its multifaceted functionality. Furthermore, it is dependent on the size of the project and the skill of the pilot to whether a drone is a feasible option for each construction project.Future research may need to be done to further refine the study. Practical research tests to see how drones perform on South African construction sites may provide critical results to elaborate on, and provide additional data. Another aspect to be further researched is the legal cost of a drone in terms of time and money to critically answer whether outsourcing or in house drone services are the future of construction company’s practices.

Benjamin Nicolai Jensen, Eljane Uys, Laetitia Cook

Conference Proceedings

Automatic Control System of Transportation Equipment for Power Transmission Line

In this paper, the automatic control system of transportation equipment for power transmission line is studied to realize the unmanned operation of the equipment. The speed control system, weighting system, sensor system for sensing the surrounding environment, slope detection system, operation state system and automatic parking system are installed in transportation equipment for power transmission line. So the automatic control system improves the work efficiency, reliability and safety of transportation equipment. In order to realize the unmanned control of transportation equipment for power transmission line, the overall structure and control is designed to realize the automatic work of the transportation equipment.

Haiyan Wang, Chengyong Huang, Junhong Zhou, Wenzhuo Lian, Kang Hou

Conference Proceedings