Uncertainty Expression for Human-Robot Task Communication

Abstract

An underlying assumption of many existing approaches to human-robot task communication is that the robot possesses a sufficient amount of environmental domain knowledge, including the locations of task-critical objects. This assumption is unrealistic if the locations of known objects change or have not yet been discovered by the robot. In this work, our key insight is that in many scenarios, robot end users possess more scene insight than the robot and need ways to express it. Presently, there is a lack of research on how solutions for collecting end-user scene insight should be designed. We thereby created an Uncertainty Expression System (UES) to investigate how best to elicit end-user scene insight. The UES allows end users to convey their knowledge of object uncertainty using either: (1) a precision interface that allows meticulous expression of scene insight; (2) a painting interface by which users create a heat map of possible object locations; and (3) a ranking interface by which end users express object locations via an ordered list. We then conducted a user study to compare the effectiveness of these approaches based on the accuracy of scene insight conveyed to the robot, the efficiency at which end users are able to express this scene insight, and both usability and task load. Results indicate that the rank interface is more user friendly and efficient than the precision interface, and that the paint interface is the least accurate.