Domain Overview - Urban Search and Rescue (USAR)

We are investigating what makes good user interfaces for operators in Urban Search and Rescue. We have collected data in the NIST Standard Test Arenas (http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/projects/USAR/) during competitions and during other experiments. We have our own robot and we are prototyping a number of different interfaces to use in experiments. We have used critical incident analysis to investigate situational awareness provided by different user interfaces. Under Department of Homeland Security Funding, we are working with FEMA teams to define standard methods for evaluating the human factors of robot platforms (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/confpage/050513.htm). {links to publications, presentations, photos}

To view USAR images, please click HERE.

Documents and Publications

1. Scholtz, J., Antonishek, B., and Young, J. 2005. A Field Study of Two Techniques for Situation Awareness for Robot Navigation in Urban Search and Rescue. 14 th IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. Nashville, TN. August, 2005.
   Yanco, H.. Drury, J., and Scholtz, J. 2004. Beyond Usability Evaluation: Analysis of Human-Robot Interaction at a Major Robotics Competition, Human-Computer Interaction.
   Scholtz, J., Young, J., Drury, J., and Yanco, H. 2004. Evaluation of Human-Robot Interaction Awareness in Search and Rescue, International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2004. Click HERE for presentation.
   Drury, J, Scholtz, J. and Yanco, H. 2004. Applying CSCW and HCI techniques to human-robot interaction.Proceedings of the CHI 2004 Workshop on Shaping Human-Robot Interaction, April 2004, Vienna, pp. 13-16.
   Drury, J., Hestand, D. Yanco, H. and Scholtz, J. 2004.. Design Guidelines for Improved Human-Robot Interaction, Proceedings of CHI2004, Poster Presentation, Vienna, April 2004.
   Scholtz, J., Antonishek, B., and Young, J. 2004. Evaluation of Human-robot Interaction in the NIST Reference Search and Rescue Test Arenas, Proceedings of PerMIS ’04 Workshop. Click HERE for presentation.
   
2. Drury, J., Yanco, H., and Scholtz, J. Awareness in Human-Robot Interactions, Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Washington, DC, Oct. 2003.