The Robotics Institute
Search the site
RI | Publications | Scheduling for Humans and Team Size Issues in Multirobot Supervisory Control

Text only version of this site

Scheduling for Humans and Team Size Issues in Multirobot Supervisory Control
S. Mau
master's thesis, tech. report CMU-RI-TR-07-20, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, June, 2007.

Jump to: Download | Abstract | Notes | Text Reference | BibTeX Reference

Download [Help]

Adobe portable document format (pdf) [2366 KB]

Copyright notice: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Abstract

This body of research describes efficient utilization of human time by two means: prioritization of human tasks and maximizing multirobot team size. An efficient scheduling algorithm for multirobot supervisory control (dSSPT) is proposed which schedules tasks such that a mission is completed faster. This algorithm is superior to existing algorithms by prioritizing human tasks such that robots can regain autonomous control sooner. In simulations of a single resource (e.g. human) scheduling problem, it is found that downtime is lower for dSSPT and the rate of human task completion is faster compared to other standard or similar algorithms. In simulations of a multirobot area surveying problem, we show that the rate of area coverage is much higher using dSSPT compared to first-in-first-out(FIFO). This work also looks at maximum multirobot team size with the notion that handling more robots on the team can potentially mean more work gets done by the robots without increasing human time. The factors that affect team size are examined mathematically and verified through simulation. It is found that variance in interaction time between humans and robots, variance in neglect time during which a robot is autonomous, and the use of different scheduling algorithms can all affect the maximum number of robots a human can manage on a team. Another significant finding related to maximum team size is that the size is always the same or higher than an often- cited estimate known as fan-out. Since fan-out is derived from an ideal, average case, it turns out that the upper bound on team size predicted by the fan-out equation is actually a lower bound on the maximum team size for any practical situation (i.e, where task lengths and periodicity may vary or when robots are heterogeneous)

Notes

Associated lab/group: Tele-Supervised Autonomous Robotics
Associated project: Telesupervised Adaptive Ocean Sensor Fleet

Number of pages: 64

Text Reference

S. Mau, Scheduling for Humans and Team Size Issues in Multirobot Supervisory Control, master's thesis, tech. report CMU-RI-TR-07-20, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, June, 2007.

BibTeX Reference

@mastersthesis{Mau_2007_5784,
   author = "Sandra Mau",
   title = "Scheduling for Humans and Team Size Issues in Multirobot Supervisory Control",
   school = "Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University",
   month = "June",
   year = "2007",
   address = "Pittsburgh, PA"
}


The Robotics Institute is part of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.
For updates and comments, please see these instructions.
This page maintained by robotwebmaster@ri.cmu.edu