Soldier Universal Robot Controller

Current robotic controllers place a great deal of emphasis on graphical control methods. While graphics and visualization are an important and critical method for controlling robotic assets, they are not sufficient in all cases. The ideal robotic controller would enable the soldier to interact with the robot in the same manner as he interacts with other subordinates, with there being no distinction between a robotic or human subordinate. While this goal requires a great deal of technology development both in controller design and in robotic autonomy, there is much that can be done to improve the state of the art in robot controllers using existing principles and technologies, to enable a more natural interaction between robot and soldier In this proposal, we present a plan to develop a Soldier Universal Robot Controller (SURC) to enable Seamless Integration between the soldier and a team of robots. The SURC will make use of multi-modal hardware (audio and visual) for input and output and a multi-tiered interface model based on robot capabilities and mission requirements; it will have cognitive aids to reduce operator workload and modulate the interface, and will use terminology familiar to the soldier (as taken from Army Field Manuals) to minimize training time, costs and cognitive burden; it will further reduce operator workload by making use of existing collaborative robotics technologies to share information between robots. Finally, there will be an embedded simulation capability for mission rehearsal and training.