4 Augmented Reality for Human-Robot Collaboration

Although robotics is well established as a research field, there has been relatively little work on human-robot collaboration. This type of collaboration is going to become an increasingly important issue as robots work ever more closely with humans. For example, in space exploration, recent research has pointed out that to reduce human workload, costs, fatigue driven error and risk, intelligent robotic systems will need to be a significant part of mission design (Fong and Nourbakhsh 2005). Fong and Nourbakhsh also observe that scant attention has been paid to joint human-robot teams, and that making human-robot collaboration natural and efficient is crucial to future space exploration. NASA’s vision for space exploration stresses the cultivation of human-robotic systems (NASA 2004). In addition, companies such as Honda (Honda 2007), Toyota (Toyota 2007) and Sony (Sony 2007) are interested in developing consumer robots that interact with humans in the home and workplace. Finally, the Cogniron project (COGNIRON 2007), MIT Media lab (Hoffmann and Breazeal 2004) and the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (Sidner and Lee 2005), among others, are currently conducting research in human-robot interaction (HRI). HRI has become a research field in its own right, as shown by the 2006 inaugural conference for HRI with the theme Toward Human-Robot Collaboration (HRI2006 2006). Research into human-human communication can be used as a starting point in developing a robust human-robot collaboration system. Previous research with humans has shown that grounding, situational awareness, a common frame of reference and spatial referencing are vital in effective communication. Clearly, there is a growing need for research on humanrobot collaboration and models of communication between humans and robotic systems. Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology for overlaying three-dimensional virtual graphics onto the users view of the real world. It also allows for real time interaction with these virtual graphics, enabling a user to reach into the augmented world and manipulate it directly. Augmented Reality could be used to overlay virtual imagery on a real robot and so display the internal state and intentions of the robot. Thus AR can bridge the divide between human and robotic systems and could enable effective human-robot collaboration. In this chapter an overview of models of human-human collaboration is provided and how these models could be used to develop a model for human-robot collaboration is investigated. The field of human-robot interaction is reviewed and how it fits into a model