Ph.D. Thesis: Information Abstraction Visualization for Human-Robot Interaction

Curtis M. Humphrey — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:08:52 +0000

Vanderbilt School of Engineering

Future emergency incident responses, including Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE), will incorporate robots. The ability to interact with robots and understand the resulting volumes of information requires a system of human-robot interfaces employing directable visualizations that provide information immediacy, relevancy, and sharing appropriate for each human’s responsibilities.
This dissertation conducted two modified Cognitive Tasks Analyses (CTA) on the CBRNE incident response. The Cognitive Information Flow Analysis (CIFA) was developed to combine CTA results and to analyze the path of information as it passes through and is transformed by the system at different human-robot interaction (HRI) user levels. These analyses (i.e., modified CTAs and CIFA) collectively informed the HRI design and development.

The primary contributions of this dissertation are the development and evaluation of two novel visualization techniques that present immediate, relevant, and shared information provided by the robots to the human users in the system of human-robot interfaces. The General Visualization Abstraction (GVA) algorithm, the first technique, is designed to provide information immediacy and relevancy by displaying the most useful information at any given moment determined by rewarding information that is either historically and currently relevant or novel and emerging. The Decision Information Abstracted to a Relevant Encapsulation (DIARE) concept, the second technique, supports decision-making by representing prior event information as a defined volume in the visualization’s information space and encapsulates the volume into an explicit and visual object that can be shared across time and users.

User evaluations were conducted for both visualization techniques. The GVA algorithm’s evaluation results indicate that it can reduce cognitive workload, increase situational awareness, and improve performance for two different HRI user levels. The DIARE concept results indicate that participants were able to rapidly ascertain what had happened previously with great accuracy and good memory recall. Together, these two visualization techniques can assist decision-makers using directable visualizations, such as those used in HRI, by offering an effective method of sharing and providing real-time, relevant information.

Related Papers:

Curtis M. Humphrey. Information Abstraction Visualization for Human-Robot Interaction. PhD thesis,Vanderbilt University, August 2009

Addressing Information Sharing in Directable Interfaces via DIARE Concept

Curtis M. Humphrey — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:19:52 +0000

DIARE Concept Snapshot

Decision Information Abstracted to a Relevant Encapsulation (DIARE) is based on the idea that evidence for a particular decision can be represented as a defined volume in the visualization’s information space spanning six components [x, y, e, t, s, m]. This defined volume becomes an object, or DIARE object, and contains information relating to that particular decision (i.e. range ofm) in terms of a spatial area (i.e. range of x, y, and e), time range (t), and detail range (v). A DIARE object acts as a super information object that can be shared between user levels and can itself become an element in the visualization. For example, several DIARE objects can be created by the person supervising the robots during an area survey, and later, someone else can search an overlapping area for any DIARE objects that deal with unusual items, which can cause the visualization to display one or two DIARE objects as information items on the map.

The evaluation participants generally stated that the DIARE concept’s strengths were its ability to provide: a quick visual event history overview (i.e., the timeline of DIARE objects), a quick mechanism to recall and replay important events (i.e., the ability to click on a DIARE object to recall that moment), and several useful elements when displaying a DIARE object (e.g., the DIARE object’s snapshot, information tags). These findings support the hypothesis that the DIARE concepts will facilitate information sharing across both time and users.

View of DIARE Concept in the Emergency Responses Interface as sceen in the user evaluations.

Related Papers:

Humphrey, C. M., & Adams, J. A. (2009). Addressing Information Sharing in Directable Interfaces via DIARE Concept. Manuscript in preparation.

In Search of a Good Title » DIARE Concept

Ph.D. Thesis: Information Abstraction Visualization for Human-Robot Interaction

Related Papers:

Addressing Information Sharing in Directable Interfaces via DIARE Concept

Related Papers: