Game-Based Design of Human-Robot Interfaces for Urban Search and Rescue

Robot Urban Search and Rescue is a new task in robotics that is challenging not only robot hardware, but also humanrobot interfaces. It is a real-world challenge in an unstructured environment that requires cooperation between a remote robot and a human operator. The study of humanrobot interfaces is still in its infancy, and most of the urban search & rescue systems field so far use an ad hoc approach to user interface design. This paper presents an overview of current thinking on interface design for urban search & rescue, presents a design and evaluation of a user interface based on a video game interface, and then makes the case that video games offer a valid road map for future development of both robot capabilities and user interfaces. A comparative analysis shows that the goals and methods used in both video games and urban search and rescue are similar, if not identical. Therefore, we can leverage the empirical success of video game interfaces in developing current and future user interfaces for urban search and rescue.