HRI Challenges Influencing Low Usage of Robotic Systems in Disaster Response and Rescue Operations

TL;DR

This paper examines the human-robot interaction challenges that hinder the widespread use of robotic systems in disaster response, analyzing existing systems and proposing solutions to improve their deployment in rescue operations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of HRI challenges in disaster robotics and suggests potential solutions based on recent research to enhance system utilization.

Findings

HRI challenges significantly impact robotic deployment in disasters

Analysis of existing disaster robotics reveals common interaction issues

Proposed solutions aim to improve human-robot collaboration in rescue missions

Abstract

The breakthrough in AI and Machine Learning has brought a new revolution in robotics, resulting in the construction of more sophisticated robotic systems. Not only can these robotic systems benefit all domains, but also can accomplish tasks that seemed to be unimaginable a few years ago. From swarms of autonomous small robots working together to more very heavy and large objects, to seemingly indestructible robots capable of going to the harshest environments, we can see robotic systems designed for every task imaginable. Among them, a key scenario where robotic systems can benefit is in disaster response scenarios and rescue operations. Robotic systems are capable of successfully conducting tasks such as removing heavy materials, utilizing multiple advanced sensors for finding objects of interest, moving through debris and various inhospitable environments, and not the least have flying capabilities. Even with so much potential, we rarely see the utilization of robotic systems in disaster response scenarios and rescue missions. Many factors could be responsible for the low utilization of robotic systems in such scenarios. One of the key factors involve challenges related to Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) issues. Therefore, in this paper, we try to understand the HRI challenges involving the utilization of robotic systems in disaster response and rescue operations. Furthermore, we go through some of the proposed robotic systems designed for disaster response scenarios and identify the HRI challenges of those systems. Finally, we try to address the challenges by introducing ideas from various proposed research works.