An Integrated Human System Interaction (HSI) Framework for Human-Agent Team Collaboration

As space missions become more complex and as mission demands increase, robots, human-robot mixed initiative teams and software autonomy applications are needed to provide increasing levels of support to the mission and to Astronauts. Whatever the task, robot teams will need to interact with Astronauts and possibly Mission Control. There is a need for cooperation and communication among all autonomous entities. Robotic intelligence is required in at least four areas: two-way communication with humans, safety awareness, self-monitoring, and self-maintenance. Robot teams will need to interact with Astronauts concerning the state of their hardware. They may need to interact with humans in order to insure human safety. In Phase 1, we developed an initial HSI Framework (HSIF) to structure protocol-driven interactions (conversations) among Astronauts and multiple-component autonomous systems (soft-bot systems (SBS)). In Phase 2, we extend our HSI framework, with new protocol development that will support interactions among {human-robot team}, {SBS– robot}, {human– robot} and {SBS- human – robot team}. In Phase 2, a protocol library will be developed. Scenarios involving interactions among humans, robot teams and soft-bot systems will be simulated using the protocol library. The protocol library will be integrated with robotic software and implemented on a hardware (robot) platform.