Supervisory Control of Multiple Robots: Human-Performance Issues and User-Interface Design

The purpose of this paper is to review research pertaining to the limitations and advantages of supervisory control for unmanned systems. We identify and discuss results showing technologies that mitigate the observed problems such as specialized interfaces, and adaptive systems. In the report, we first present an overview of definitions and important terms of supervisory control and human-agent teaming. We then discuss human performance issues in supervisory control of multiple robots with regard to operator multitasking performance, trust in automation, situation awareness, and operator workload. In the following sections, we review research findings for specific areas of supervisory control of multiple ground robots, aerial robots, and heterogeneous robots (using different types of robots in the same mission). In the last section, we review innovative techniques and technologies designed to enhance operator performance and reduce potential performance degradations identified in the literature.