Challenges to Grounding in Human-Robot Collaboration: Errors and Miscommunications in Remote Exploration Robotics - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University

Challenges to Grounding in Human-Robot Collaboration: Errors and Miscommunications in Remote Exploration Robotics

Kristen Stubbs, Pamela Hinds, and David Wettergreen
Tech. Report, CMU-RI-TR-06-32, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, July, 2006

Abstract

We report a study of a collaborative human-robot system composed of a science team (located in Pittsburgh), an engineering team (located in Chile), and a rover (located in Chile). The project was intended to be analogous to and inform planetary exploration. We performed observations simultaneously at both sites over two weeks as scientists collected data using the rover. We observed problems in perspective-taking and grounding between the science team, the engineering team, and the rover because of geographic distance and different disciplinary perspectives. Due to this, the science team made errors in commanding the rover and in interpreting the data that was returned to them. Our results have implications for the design of collaboration between people and robots.

Notes
Also sponsored by an NSF Graduate Fellowship to the first author and NSF Grant #ITR/PE-0121426 to the second author.

BibTeX

@techreport{Stubbs-2006-9529,
author = {Kristen Stubbs and Pamela Hinds and David Wettergreen},
title = {Challenges to Grounding in Human-Robot Collaboration: Errors and Miscommunications in Remote Exploration Robotics},
year = {2006},
month = {July},
institute = {Carnegie Mellon University},
address = {Pittsburgh, PA},
number = {CMU-RI-TR-06-32},
keywords = {human-robot interaction, distributed work, communication, mutual knowledge, common ground, qualitative field work},
}