Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering (archive)

Feature on Dr. Richard Stone

The focus of our research efforts in the Human Performance and Cognitive Engineering Lab is in human performance enhancement in the both physical and mental domains.  We employ multiple approaches toward this goal, including cognitive and physiological engineering, classical and experimental ergonomics, augmented reality, and the incorporation and application of new technologies.

Every year we explore a wide variety of domains and apply what we learn to the design of systems, tools and/or task. One of our projects this summer focused on the area of unmanned ground vehicle UGV control. Currently UGV are used in both the military and civilian domains to perform recognizance and recovery tasks. These systems are typically controlled by a single human operator. This operator is generally in full control of the UGV system and is responsible for interpreting all video and sensory data that is sent back to the control system.   

Our goal was to improve human performance by designing alternative control systems specifically designed to enhance human tele-robotic navigation capabilities. By studying operators using classic joystick based systems we were able to determine that multi-touch technologies was a good control alternative. To this end we developed a multi-touch based screen that addressed the human factors issues we discovered in our initial study (see below).

We tested this control system against a classical joystick based control system in a real world search task.  In this task participants controlled M.I.A. (one of our robotic scouts) searching a section of the ISU campus for lost objects (see below).

Each participant was given 30 minutes to search and recover as many objects as possible. After analyzing our subject data we found the multi-touch based control systems significantly increased an operator’s situational awareness and increased their ability to correctly identify lost objects.  However we also found that the use of multi-touch screens over long periods of time can lead to a greater degree of physical fatigue in the lower arm than would the use of classical joystick control systems. As a result were able to suggest and will soon test design alteration to greatly reduce this short coming and further enhance multi-touch based UGV control systems.

This project is part of a much larger initiative currently underway in our lab. This fall we will be experimenting with human tele-robotic fleet control. Specifically we are examining how real world tele-robotic fleets operation can designed to increase human controller awareness of overall mission status. In this study we will be investigating the impact of various levels of robotic autonomy and how the human supervisor is affected in terms of decision making and sustained intervention competence. If you are interested in learning more about these or any of our other research projects please contact Dr. Stone at rstoneiastate.edu.