Future NASA missions will increasingly depend on the seamless integration of human-robot systems to accomplish critical mission goals. In particular, an emerging class of free-flying robots appears to…

This federal contract award, identified as NNX16AR58G, was granted by NASA to The Regents of the University of Colorado, doing business as the University of Colorado Office of Contracts and Grants Division. The $357,195.61 grant is intended to advance fundamental knowledge of human-robot interaction principles to enable deployments of distributed teams consisting of humans and free-flying robots in NASA missions. The research aims to develop new methods for communicating robot status at a glance and scalable robot interface technologies that support both proximal (e.g., crew) and distal (e.g., ground control) operation. This work will help realize the full potential of free-flying robots as collaborative partners supporting human activities across a variety of NASA work contexts. The contract does not have a set-aside designation and was awarded on October 3, 2016, with an ultimate completion date of October 2, 2020.

Future NASA missions will increasingly depend on the seamless integration of human-robot systems to accomplish critical mission goals. In particular, an emerging class of free-flying robots appears to hold great promise in complementing human space exploration activities (e.g., aiding in environmental data collection or task monitoring). The goal of this research is to advance fundamental knowledge of human-robot interaction principles to enable deployments of distributed teams consisting of humans and free-flying robots in NASA missions. This work will help realize the full potential of free-flying robots as collaborative partners supporting human activities across a variety of NASA work contexts by developing new methods for communicating robot status at a glance and scalable robot interface technologies that support both proximal (e.g., crew) and distal (e.g., ground control) operation. Research in each of these aspects will involve three main stages: (1) building human-centered knowledge regarding user collaboration with flying robot teammates (e.g., leading to principles that inspire the design of at-a-glance notifications or interface design requirements), (2) prototyping new algorithms, designs, and techniques based on the principles identified and the first stage, and (3) evaluating the effectiveness of integrated solutions on collaborative task outcomes situated within the context of NASA mission scenarios. By carrying out a comprehensive design, implementation, and evaluation procedure, this work will culminate in experimental results that validate key design principles for free-flying robot signaling and interface design.