Context-Enabled Visualization Strategies for Automation Enabled Human-in-the-loop Inspection Systems to Enhance the Situation Awareness of Windstorm Risk Engineers

Insurance loss prevention survey, specifically windstorm risk inspection survey is the process of investigating potential damages associated with a building or structure in the event of an extreme weather condition such as a hurricane or tornado. Traditionally, the risk inspection process is highly subjective and depends on the skills of the engineer performing it. This dissertation investigates the sensemaking process of risk engineers while performing risk inspection with special focus on various factors influencing it. This research then investigates how context-based visualizations strategies enhance the situation awareness and performance of windstorm risk engineers. An initial study investigated the sensemaking process and situation awareness requirements of the windstorm risk engineers. The data frame theory of sensemaking was used as the framework to carry out this study. Ten windstorm risk engineers were interviewed, and the data collected were analyzed following an inductive thematic approach. The themes emerged from the data explained the sensemaking process of risk engineers, the process of making sense of contradicting information, importance of their experience level, internal and external biases influencing the inspection process, difficulty developing mental models, and potential technology interventions. More recently human in the loop systems such as drones have been used to improve the efficiency of windstorm risk inspection. This study provides recommendations to guide the design of such systems to support the sensemaking process and situation awareness of windstorm visual risk inspection. The second study investigated the effect of context-based visualization strategies to enhance the situation awareness of the windstorm risk engineers. More specifically, the study investigated how different types of information contribute towards the three levels of situation awareness. Following a between subjects study design 65 civil/construction engineering students completed this study. A checklist based and predictive display based decision aids were tested and found to be effective in supporting the situation awareness requirements as well as performance of windstorm risk engineers. However, the predictive display only helped with certain tasks like understanding the interaction among different components on the rooftop. For remaining tasks, checklist alone was sufficient. Moreover, the decision aids did not place any additional cognitive demand on the participants. This study helped us understand the advantages and disadvantages of the decision aids tested. The final study evaluated the transfer of training effect of the checklist and predictive display based decision aids. After one week of the previous study, participants completed a follow-up study without any decision aids. The performance and situation awareness of participants in the checklist and predictive display group did not change significantly from first trial to second trial. However, the performance and situation awareness of participants in the control condition improved significantly in the second trial. They attributed this to their exposure to SAGAT questionnaire in the first study. They knew what issues to look for and what tasks need to be completed in the simulation. The confounding effect of SAGAT questionnaires needs to be studied in future research efforts

Position / force control of systems subjected to communicaton delays and interruptions in bilateral teleoperation

Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Izmir, 2012Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 65-68)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishix, 76 leavesTeleoperation technology allows to remotely operate robotic (slave) systems located in hazardous, risky and distant environments. The human operator sends commands through the controller (master) system to execute the tasks from a distance. The operator is provided with necessary (visual, audio or haptic) feedback to accomplish the mission remotely. In bilateral teleoperation, continuous feedback from the remote environment is generated. Thus, the operator can handle the task as if the operator is in the remote environment relying on the relevant feedback. Since teleoperation deals with systems controlled from a distance, time delays and package losses in transmission of information are present. These communication failures affect the human perception and system stability, and thus, the ability of operator to handle the task successfully. The objective of this thesis is to investigate and develop a control algorithm, which utilizes model mediated teleoperation integrating parallel position/force controllers, to compensate for the instability issues and excessive forcing applied to the environment arising from communication failures. Model mediation technique is extended for three-degrees-of-freedom teleoperation and a parallel position/force controller, impedance controller, is integrated in the control algorithm. The proposed control method is experimentally tested by using Matlab Simulink blocksets for real-time experimentation in which haptic desktop devices, Novint Falcon and Phantom Desktop are configured as master and slave subsystems of the bilateral teleoperation. The results of these tests indicate that the stability and passivity of proposed bilateral teleoperation systems are preserved during constant and variable time delays and data losses while the position and force tracking test results provide acceptable performance with bounded errors

The Geometry and Usage of the Supplementary Fisheye Lenses in Smartphones

Nowadays, mobile phones are more than a device that can only satisfy the communication need between people. Since fisheye lenses integrated with mobile phones are lightweight and easy to use, they are advantageous. In addition to this advantage, it is experimented whether fisheye lens and mobile phone combination can be used in a photogrammetric way, and if so, what will be the result. Fisheye lens equipment used with mobile phones was tested in this study. For this, standard calibration of ‘Olloclip 3 in one’ fisheye lens used with iPhone 4S mobile phone and ‘Nikon FC‐E9’ fisheye lens used with Nikon Coolpix8700 are compared based on equidistant model. This experimental study shows that Olloclip 3 in one fisheye lens developed for mobile phones has at least the similar characteristics with classic fisheye lenses. The dimensions of fisheye lenses used with smart phones are getting smaller and the prices are reducing. Moreover, as verified in this study, the accuracy of fisheye lenses used in smartphones is better than conventional fisheye lenses. The use of smartphones with fisheye lenses will give the possibility of practical applications to ordinary users in the near future

Human-robot interaction for telemanipulation by small unmanned aerial systems

This dissertation investigated the human-robot interaction (HRI) for the Mission Specialist role in a telemanipulating unmanned aerial system (UAS). The emergence of commercial unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms transformed the civil and environmental engineering industries through applications such as surveying, remote infrastructure inspection, and construction monitoring, which normally use UAVs for visual inspection only. Recent developments, however, suggest that performing physical interactions in dynamic environments will be important tasks for future UAS, particularly in applications such as environmental sampling and infrastructure testing. In all domains, the availability of a Mission Specialist to monitor the interaction and intervene when necessary is essential for successful deployments. Additionally, manual operation is the default mode for safety reasons; therefore, understanding Mission Specialist HRI is important for all small telemanipulating UAS in civil engineering, regardless of system autonomy and application. A 5 subject exploratory study and a 36 subject experimental study were conducted to evaluate variations of a dedicated, mobile Mission Specialist interface for aerial telemanipulation from a small UAV. The Shared Roles Model was used to model the UAS human-robot team, and the Mission Specialist and Pilot roles were informed by the current state of practice for manipulating UAVs. Three interface camera view designs were tested using a within-subjects design, which included an egocentric view (perspective from the manipulator), exocentric view (perspective from the UAV), and mixed egocentric-exocentric view. The experimental trials required Mission Specialist participants to complete a series of tasks with physical, visual, and verbal requirements. Results from these studies found that subjects who preferred the exocentric condition performed tasks 50% faster when using their preferred interface; however, interface preferences did not affect performance for participants who preferred the mixed condition. This result led to a second finding that participants who preferred the exocentric condition were distracted by the egocentric view during the mixed condition, likely caused by cognitive tunneling, and the data suggest tradeoffs between performance improvements and attentional costs when adding information in the form of multiple views to the Mission Specialist interface. Additionally, based on this empirical evaluation of multiple camera views, the exocentric view was recommended for use in a dedicated Mission Specialist telemanipulation interface. Contributions of this thesis include: i) conducting the first focused HRI study of aerial telemanipulation, ii) development of an evaluative model for telemanipulation performance, iii) creation of new recommendations for aerial telemanipulation interfacing, and iv) contribution of code, hardware designs, and system architectures to the open-source UAV community. The evaluative model provides a detailed framework, a complement to the abstraction of the Shared Roles Model, that can be used to measure the effects of changes in the system, environment, operators, and interfacing factors on performance. The practical contributions of this work will expedite the use of manipulating UAV technologies by scientists, researchers, and stakeholders, particularly those in civil engineering, who will directly benefit from improved manipulating UAV performance

Design Patterns for Situated Visualization in Augmented Reality

Situated visualization has become an increasingly popular research area in the visualization community, fueled by advancements in augmented reality (AR) technology and immersive analytics. Visualizing data in spatial proximity to their physical referents affords new design opportunities and considerations not present in traditional visualization, which researchers are now beginning to explore. However, the AR research community has an extensive history of designing graphics that are displayed in highly physical contexts. In this work, we leverage the richness of AR research and apply it to situated visualization. We derive design patterns which summarize common approaches of visualizing data in situ. The design patterns are based on a survey of 293 papers published in the AR and visualization communities, as well as our own expertise. We discuss design dimensions that help to describe both our patterns and previous work in the literature. This discussion is accompanied by several guidelines which explain how to apply the patterns given the constraints imposed by the real world. We conclude by discussing future research directions that will help establish a complete understanding of the design of situated visualization, including the role of interactivity, tasks, and workflows.Comment: To appear in IEEE VIS 202

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

Semantic mapping for service robots: building and using maps for mobile manipulators in semi-structured environments

Although much progress has been made in the field of robotic mapping, many challenges remain including: efficient semantic segmentation using RGB-D sensors, map representations that include complex features (structures and objects), and interfaces for interactive annotation of maps. This thesis addresses how prior knowledge of semi-structured human environments can be leveraged to improve segmentation, mapping, and semantic annotation of maps. We present an organized connected component approach for segmenting RGB-D data into planes and clusters. These segments serve as input to our mapping approach that utilizes them as planar landmarks and object landmarks for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), providing necessary information for service robot tasks and improving data association and loop closure. These features are meaningful to humans, enabling annotation of mapped features to establish common ground and simplifying tasking. A modular, open-source software framework, the OmniMapper, is also presented that allows a number of different sensors and features to be combined to generate a combined map representation, and enabling easy addition of new feature types.Ph.D

A Framework for Improving the Speed and Performance of Teleoperated Mobile Manipulators.

Despite recent advances in robot autonomy, teleoperation remains an integral part of many robot tasks. In situations where it is hazardous or difficult for humans to be present, but which require human judgment and decision-making skills, the use of a human operator is the only option. However, there are many issues resulting from limited feedback channels that degrade perception and manipulation abilities in remote environments, causing even basic robot tasks to be difficult and time-consuming. For robots to become more useful tools for humans in remote environments, the speed and ease of teleoperated tasks must be increased. This purpose of this dissertation is to develop a framework for increasing speed and performance of teleoperated mobile robot tasks. First, the key issues affecting teleoperated robot system performance are defined and characterized. These factors are incorporated into an optimization-based approach for evaluating multiple design options for teleoperated systems. This optimization may require models for system components that are not readily available, and must be estimated or measured empirically. Modeling user performance in teleoperation tasks can be particularly difficult. This dissertation focuses on obtaining such models by performing several user studies designed to predict the teleoperator performance in response to multiple manual input devices and visual feedback mechanisms, as well as varying system latencies. The overall framework for improving system performance is based on incorporating the derived, estimated, and measured component models into the implementation of the design optimization over a series of operations in the teleoperation system's required task set. The contributions of this dissertation are as follows: 1) An identification of the factors limiting teleoperation system performance. 2) A framework for performing design optimization of teleoperated mobile robot speed and performance. 3) An evaluation of teleoperator performance with two different manual interfaces and two different visualization interfaces. 4) The development of a performance model for a path-following steering task under different latency conditions that indicates a possible mapping between performance under constant latency and variable latency. 5) The development and validation of a driver model capable of generating human-like steering inputs to a mobile robot.PHDMechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/102482/1/svozar_1.pd