Seminar: Human-Robot Teaming: From space robotics to self-driving cars - Sept. 10
Terry Fong
Chief Roboticist, NASA Ames Research Center
Friday, Sept. 10 | 12:00 P.M. | Zoom Webinar
Abstract: The role of robots in human-robot teams is increasingly becoming that of a peer-like teammate, or partner, who is able to assist with and complete joint tasks. This relationship raises key issues that need to be addressed in order for such teams to be effective. In particular, human-robot teaming demands that concepts of communication, coordination, and collaboration be accommodated by human-robot interaction. Moreover, building effective human-robot teams is challenging because robotic capabilities are continually advancing, yet still have difficulties when faced with anomalies, edge cases, and corner cases
In this talk, I will describe how NASA Ames has been developing and testing human-robot teams. In our research, we have focused on studying how such teams can increase the performance, reduce the cost, and increase the success of space missions. A key tenet of our work is that humans and robots should support one another in order to compensate for limitations of human manual control and robot autonomy. This principle has broad applicability beyond space exploration. Thus, I will conclude by discussing how we have worked with Nissan to apply our methods to self-driving cars -- enabling humans to remotely support self-driving cars operating in unpredictable and difficult situations.
Bio: Terry Fong is NASA's Senior Scientist for Autonomous Systems and the deputy rover lead for NASA's VIPER lunar rover mission. He is also Chief Roboticist and former Director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at the NASA Ames Research Center. Terry previously led development of the Astrobee free-flying robot, which was installed on the Space Station in 2019. Prior to NASA, Terry was the deputy of the Virtual Reality and Active Interfaces Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology / Lausanne (EPFL) and the Vice President of Development at Fourth Planet, Inc., a developer of real-time visualization software. Terry has published more than 150 papers in space and field robotics, human-robot interaction, and virtual environments. Terry received his B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and his Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.