Training Human-Robot Teams by Improving Transparency Through a Virtual Spectator Interface

After-action reviews (AARs) are professional discussions that help operators and teams enhance their task performance by analyzing completed missions with peers and professionals. Previous studies that compared different formats of AARs have mainly focused on human teams. However, the inclusion of robotic teammates brings along new challenges in understanding teammate intent and communication. Traditional AAR between human teammates may not be satisfactory for human-robot teams. To address this limitation, we propose a new training review (TR) tool, called the Virtual Spectator Interface (VSI), to enhance human-robot team performance and situational awareness (SA) in a simulated search mission. The proposed VSI primarily utilizes visual feedback to review subjects' behavior. To examine the effectiveness of VSI, we took elements from AAR to conduct our own TR, designed a 1 x 3 between-subjects experiment with experimental conditions: TR with (1) VSI, (2) screen recording, and (3) non-technology (only verbal descriptions). The results of our experiments demonstrated that the VSI did not result in significantly better team performance than other conditions. However, the TR with VSI led to more improvement in the subjects SA over the other conditions.

Approximate FW Algorithm with a novel DMO method over Graph-structured Support Set

In this project, we reviewed a paper that deals graph-structured convex optimization (GSCO) problem with the approximate Frank-Wolfe (FW) algorithm. We analyzed and implemented the original algorithm and introduced some extensions based on that. Then we conducted experiments to compare the results and concluded that our backtracking line-search method effectively reduced the number of iterations, while our new DMO method (Top-g+ optimal visiting) did not make satisfying enough improvements.