Human Performance Modeling of Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue Operations

Discipline: Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electric Engineering

Project Description:
There is an increasing need of deploying robots in search and rescue operations in disaster situations. The current role of mobile robots in search and rescue operations is mainly to assist the human rescuer in dangerous and risky tasks to minimize risk to the operator. With the advancement of collaborative technologies, the role of robots has now evolved from being a tool where the human has total control over to being member of a human robot team where the human assume the supervisor role.

The project aims to understand and model the human performance in the robot-assisted search and rescue operations so as to investigate the workload issues in search and rescue operations of human-robot team using the human performance modeling approach. There are several approaches to model human performance and one of them is the task network model which allows the researcher to easily describe the processes used by the human operator to perform an activity.

The initial phase of this project is the knowledge elicitation phase where the researcher will have to gather information about the taskflow and the workload levels associated with the tasks of the research and rescue operations.

This will be followed by the development of the conceptual human performance model using IPME (Integrated Performance Modeling Environment) software and then simulations of the model to examine the workload levels. If there is incidence of overload, the researcher will have to refine the model until the model has no overload.

The challenge of the project is provide the accurate inputs to the parameters of the human performance model so as to create a model which closely represents tat of a human robot team research and rescue operations.

Pre-requisite:
Basic knowledge of programming skills, keen interest in Human Factors Engineering or Human Computer Interaction.