Regulating Highly Automated Robot Ecologies: Insights from Three User Studies

Highly automated robot ecologies (HARE), or societies of independent autonomous robots or agents, are rapidly becoming an important part of much of the world's critical infrastructure. As with human societies, regulation, wherein a governing body designs rules and processes for the society, plays an important role in ensuring that HARE meet societal objectives. However, to date, a careful study of interactions between a regulator and HARE is lacking. In this paper, we report on three user studies which give insights into how to design systems that allow people, acting as the regulatory authority, to effectively interact with HARE. As in the study of political systems in which governments regulate human societies, our studies analyze how interactions between HARE and regulators are impacted by regulatory power and individual (robot or agent) autonomy. Our results show that regulator power, decision support, and adaptive autonomy can each diminish the social welfare of HARE, and hint at how these seemingly desirable mechanisms can be designed so that they become part of successful HARE.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, to appear in the 5th International Conference on Human Agent Interaction (HAI-2017), Bielefeld, German

A Predictive Model for Human-Unmanned Vehicle Systems : Final Report

Advances in automation are making it possible for a single operator to control multiple unmanned vehicles (UVs). This capability is desirable in order to reduce the operational costs of human-UV systems (HUVS), extend human capabilities, and improve system effectiveness. However, the high complexity of these systems introduces many significant challenges to system designers. To help understand and overcome these challenges, high-fidelity computational models of the HUVS must be developed. These models should have two capabilities. First, they must be able to describe the behavior of the various entities in the team, including both the human operator and the UVs in the team. Second, these models must have the ability to predict how changes in the HUVS and its mission will alter the performance characteristics of the system. In this report, we describe our work toward developing such a model. Via user studies, we show that our model has the ability to describe the behavior of a HUVS consisting of a single human operator and multiple independent UVs with homogeneous capabilities. We also evaluate the model’s ability to predict how changes in the team size, the human-UV interface, the UV’s autonomy levels, and operator strategies affect the system’s performance.Prepared for MIT Lincoln Laborator

Identifying Predictive Metrics for Supervisory Control of Multiple Robots

In recent years, much research has focused on making possible single operator control of multiple robots. In these high workload situations, many questions arise including how many robots should be in the team, which autonomy levels should they employ, and when should these autonomy levels change? To answer these questions, sets of metric classes should be identified that capture these aspects of the human-robot team. Such a set of metric classes should have three properties. First, it should contain the key performance parameters of the system. Second, it should identify the limitations of the agents in the system. Third, it should have predictive power. In this paper, we decompose a human-robot team consisting of a single human and multiple robots in an effort to identify such a set of metric classes. We assess the ability of this set of metric classes to (a) predict the number of robots that should be in the team and (b) predict system effectiveness. We do so by comparing predictions with actual data from a user study, which is also described.This research was funded by MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Should Internet Protocol-Enabled Video Service Provided over a Telephone Network Be Regulated as a Cable Service?

We examine whether, on legal or policy grounds, Internet protocol-enabled video services provided over a telephone network should be regulated as a cable service. We evaluate the history of cable regulation and the services that Congress envisioned to be regulated when it first drafted legislation establishing a regulatory framework for cable television services in 1984. We then examine numerous differences between the IP-enabled video services delivered over a telephone network and those that Congress envisioned when regulating cable television service in 1984 and in subsequent years when it revised the Cable Act of 1984. Finally, we find that municipal franchise requirements for IP-enabled video services provided over telephone networks would reduce consumer welfare. We estimate that, upon ubiquitous deployment by telephone companies of fiber networks to provide video service, cable customers living in areas not yet overbuilt by a wireline distributor of multi-channel video programming would enjoy the benefits of lower prices of roughly $7.15 per month, or$85.80 per year. A five-year net present value of the annualized savings would be roughly $26.52 billion (assuming a five percent discount rate). To the extent that direct broadcast satellite operators respond to lower cable prices with price reductions of their own, the net present value of the welfare benefits from telephone company entry into the market for multi-channel video programming distribution would increase by roughly 50 percent, to nearly$40 billion. We estimate that, even without considering any welfare gains owing to higher quality, these consumer welfare gains from entry exceed the potential loss in franchise fee revenues to municipalities by a factor of nearly three to one

Does Video Delivered over a Telephone Network Require a Cable Franchise?

This Article examines whether, on legal or policy grounds, video services provided over a telephone network should be regulated as a traditional cable service or whether a different approach is warranted. The Authors find that municipal franchise requirements for video services provided over telephone networks would reduce consumer welfare. The Authors estimate that, even without considering any welfare gains owing to higher quality, the consumer welfare gains from entry exceed the potential loss in franchise fee revenue to municipalities by a factor of nearly three to one

Video over Telephone Networks: The Case against Regulation

The current wave of telecommunications reform stands to significantly affect the provision of video over telephone networks. Current legislative initiatives are treating video services provided over telephone networks in essentially the same way as traditional cable video services. We examine whether, on legal or policy grounds, video services provided over a telephone network should be regulated as a cable service. We evaluate the history of cable regulation and the services that Congress envisioned to be regulated when it first drafted legislation establishing a regulatory framework for cable television services in 1984. We then examine numerous differences between video services delivered over a telephone network and those that Congress envisioned when regulating cable television service in 1984 and in subsequent years when it revised the Cable Act of 1984. Finally, we find that municipal franchise requirements for video services provided over telephone networks would reduce consumer welfare. We estimate that, upon ubiquitous deployment by telephone companies of fiber networks to provide video service, cable customers living in areas not yet overbuilt by a wireline distributor of multi-channel video programming would enjoy the benefits of lower prices of roughly $7.15 per month, or$85.80 per year. A five-year net present value of the annualized savings would be roughly $26.52 billion (assuming a five percent discount rate). To the extent that direct broadcast satellite operators respond to lower cable prices with price reductions of their own, the net present value of the welfare benefits from telephone company entry into the market for multi-channel video programming distribution would increase by roughly 50 percent, to nearly$40 billion. We estimate that, even without considering any welfare gains owing to higher quality, these consumer welfare gains from entry exceed the potential loss in franchise fee revenues to municipalities by a factor of nearly three to one

Preconditioning Feeder Calves

Each year more than million quality feeder calves are sold in South Dakota. These sales contribute significantly to agricultural income in the state, the sale of cattle and calves comprising about 50% of the total. Under the leadership of the South Dakota Beef Cattle Improvement Association (BCIA) and the South Dakota Extension Service, an organized, certified feeder calf preconditioning program has been initiated and is available as an optional management/marketing tool for South Dakota cow-calf producers. The program is designed to assure the highest standards of quality, health and performance once South Dakota feeder calves reach the feedlot

Does Video Delivered over a Telephone Network Require a Cable Franchise?

This Article examines whether, on legal or policy grounds, video services provided over a telephone network should be regulated as a traditional cable service or whether a different approach is warranted. The Authors find that municipal franchise requirements for video services provided over telephone networks would reduce consumer welfare. The Authors estimate that, even without considering any welfare gains owing to higher quality, the consumer welfare gains from entry exceed the potential loss in franchise fee revenue to municipalities by a factor of nearly three to one

Regulating Emissions of Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act

The authors consider whether the Environmental Protection Agency's denial of the petition to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases from motor vehicles under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act was reasonable in light of the global nature of greenhouse gas emissions and the likely superiority of other methods for combating greenhouse gases.Environment, Health and Safety, Regulatory Reform, Other Topics

A UAV Mission Hierarchy

In the following sections, each of the primary missions are decomposed into mission planning, management, and replanning segments in order to identify what the primary functions a human operator will need to perform. The goal is to understand what tasks/functions are common across different UAV missions and platforms in order to map the generalizability of any particular research project.Prepared for Charles River Analytic