Collaborative, Decision making, and Operational Shared-Control Framework for Human-Robot Interaction

The overall aim of of the planned research is to develop a holistic, human-centric shared-control framework for human-robot collaboration that will consider the interaction on: (i) the cognitive/decision-making level for a dynamic allocation of responsibilities and roles to the human and the robot, as well as an online negotiation to avoid/resolve conflicts, and (ii) the physical/operational level with human-in-the-loop.

Currently, there exists no holistic shared-control framework that enables interaction on cognitive (decision-making) and operational (physical) levels simultaneously, that is independent of the type of a robot system or the interaction (teleoperation or direct physical interaction).The shared-control framework that will be developed within this project will enable human-robot collaboration in many application domains ranging from industrial, service, medical, to exploration of dangerous/inaccessible environments.

In particular, the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed a pressing need for robot assistants in hospitals because of a shortage of clinical professionals and the risk of infection spreading to hospital staff who interact with infected patients. Therefore, the focus of this action is on human-robot collaboration in healthcare.