Matthew Gombolay - The Human in Human-Autonomy Interaction

Human-Machine Interation; Machine Learning; Human Factors Engineering; Robotics
abstract: New advances in robotics and autonomy offer the promise to revitalize assembly manufacturing, assist in personalized at-home healthcare, and even scale the power of earth-bound scientists for robotic space exploration. Yet, in real-world applications, autonomy is often run in the O-F-F mode because researchers fail to understand the human in human-in-the-loop systems. In this talk, I will share exciting research we are conducting at the nexus of human factors engineering and cognitive robotics to inform the design of human-autonomy interaction. In my talk, I will focus on our recent work in 1) understanding the psychology behind human response to autonomy failures, 2) how personality traits affect a human’s ability to teach robots skills, and 3) how we can design robot behaviors and relationship-building mechanisms to establish rapport between human and machine. The goal of this research is to inform the design of autonomous teammates that users want to turn – and benefit from turning – to the O-N mode.
...................................