Humans, robots, rubble, and research

interaction by the DARPA/NSF study and a computer science grand challenge by the Computing Research Association. This is not surprising given the extreme challenges of the urban search and rescue domain (US&R), where small robots are used to explore highly confined voids deep in the interior of rubble. US&R itself is demanding on emergency responders since the environment is deconstructed and noisy, a priori knowledge may be unavailable, incomplete or incorrect, and the pace of the rescue unpredictable (e.g., " hurry up and wait "). Possibly more interesting for HRI is that US&R poses a diversity of " consumers " (victims, searchers, specialists, off-site support specialists) and many are working under unfavorable, error-inducing conditions. A single type of robot is not sufficient; so multiple, difficult-to-control platforms must be used by the same operators. Communication frequently breaks down or reduced bandwidth occurs, thus constricting the information flow and introducing team breakdowns. Humans must collaborate with software agents to overcome perceptual challenges, as well as the more typical use of agents to mine and represent related knowledge. The Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) conducts basic and applied field research. Field research at realistic venues with hardened robots and rescue professionals is often difficult to organize, and CRASAR is fortunate to have developed a network of contacts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), individual states, and the U.S. Department of Defense that enables field work at least four times a year. (CRASAR provides opportunities for researchers to join us in the field or for us to collect data by proxy through the NSF-funded " R4: Rescue Robots for Research and Response " program.) To date, our field research has produced five distinct results. One of the fundamental results has been the creation of task models of the technical search and remote medical-support missions and the associated mental models of the operator. Task models are essential because they define the goals of the human-robot team and how they accomplish it. Task models do not exist because robots are currently not used for US&R (though FEMA has begun the process of adding robots to the accepted equipment list for response teams and regional teams are looking at purchases). Since robots are not currently used, traditional work analysis methods of defining the task and then the human's role in the task do not apply. Instead, we have created the RASAR modular coding scheme …