Multiuser Collaboration for Planetary Mobility and Robotics

This research will develop the multiuser collaboration infrastructure whichenables multiple users to interact and collaborate on host applicationsusing their mobile devices. Multiuser collaboration is an importantelement of ground operations in planetary rover and lander missions.During mission operations, scientists need to meet often to plan scienceactivities with planning and visualization tools projected on largedisplays. This infrastructure will allow the scientists to interactdirectly with the software tools to collaborate on science planningactivities.The infrastructure includes (1) human-computer interaction techniques thatenable natural, fast, and accurate inputs, (2) application-independentmiddleware that maintains information about the connection, state, andsession of individual users and enables interaction and collaboration withthe software applications, (3) communication protocol that ensures reliableand secure connectivity between the mobile devices and host computers, (4)toolkit that generates GUI components that can be displayed on mobiledevices, and (5) delivery and synchronization services that transportapplication components and data for offline interactions.The infrastructure supports a broad range of mobile devices encompassinglaptops, PDAs, and cellphones, and supports all desktop applicationsrunning under the Windows or Unix platforms.