Synchronous vs. asynchronous control for large robot teams

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss and investigate the advantages of an asynchronous display, called image queue, for foraging tasks with emphasis on Urban Search and Rescue. The image queue approach mines video data to present the operator with a relevant and comprehensive view of the environment, which helps the user to identify targets of interest such as injured victims. This approach allows operators to search through a large amount of data gathered by autonomous robot teams, and fills the gap for comprehensive and scalable displays to obtain a network-centric perspective for UGVs. It is found that the image queue reduces errors and operator's workload comparing with the traditional synchronous display. Furthermore, it disentangles target detection from concurrent system operations and enables a call center approach to target detection. With such an approach, it could scale up to a larger multi-robot systems gathering huge amounts of data with multiple operators. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.