Abstract:
The role of robots in human-robot teams is increasingly becoming that of a peer-like teammate, or partner, who is able to assist with and complete joint tasks. This relationship raises key issues that need to be addressed in order for such teams to be effective. In particular, human-robot teaming demands that concepts of communication, coordination, and collaboration be accommodated by human-robot interaction. Moreover, building effective human-robot teams is challenging because robotic capabilities are continually advancing, yet still have difficulties when faced with anomalies, edge cases, and corner cases.
In this talk, I will describe how NASA Ames has been developing and testing human-robot teams. In our research, we have focused on studying how such teams can increase the performance, reduce the cost, and increase the success of space missions. A key tenet of our work is that humans and robots should support one another in order to compensate for limitations of human manual control and robot autonomy. This principle has broad applicability beyond space exploration. Thus, I will conclude by discussing how we have worked with Nissan to apply our methods to self-driving cars -- enabling humans to support self-driving cars operating in unpredictable and difficult situations.
Bio:
Terry Fong is NASA's Senior Scientist for Autonomous Systems and leads a senior advisory team on autonomy in support of NASA's aeronautics, robotic, and human exploration missions. Terry is also Chief Roboticist and former Director of the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group. Terry previously served as deputy lead for the NASA Resource Prospector lunar rover and as project manager for the NASA Human Exploration Telerobotics project, which tested telerobotic systems on the International Space Station. Prior to working for NASA, Terry was the deputy of the Virtual Reality and Active Interfaces Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology / Lausanne (EPFL). Before that, Terry was Vice President of Development for Fourth Planet, Inc., a developer of real-time visualization software. Terry has published more than 150 papers in space and field robotics, human-robot interaction, and planetary mapping. Terry has a B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and a Ph.D. in Robotics from CMU.