Assessing cooperation in human control of heterogeneous robots

Human control of multiple robots has been characterized by the average demand of single robots on human attention. While this matches situations in which independent robots are controlled sequentially it does not capture aspects of demand associated with coordinating dependent actions among robots. This paper presents an extension of Crandall's neglect tolerance model intended to accommodate both coordination demands (CD) and heterogeneity among robots. The reported experiment attempts to manipulate coordination demand by varying the proximity needed to perform a joint task in two conditions and by automating coordination within subteams in a third. Team performance and the process measure CD were assessed for each condition. Automating cooperation reduced CD and improved performance. We discuss the utility of process measures such as CD to analyze and improve control performance.