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CoHRT: A Collaboration System for Human-Robot Teamwork

Sujan Sarker, Haley N. Green, Mohammad Samin Yasar, Tariq Iqbal

TL;DR

CoHRT (Collaboration System for Human-Robot Teamwork) is introduced, which facilitates multi-human-robot teamwork through seamless collaboration, coordination, and communication and allows for the design of tasks considering the human teammates' physical and mental workload and varied skill labels across the team members.

Abstract

Collaborative robots are increasingly deployed alongside humans in factories, hospitals, schools, and other domains to enhance teamwork and efficiency. Systems that seamlessly integrate humans and robots into cohesive teams for coordinated and efficient task execution are needed, enabling studies on how robot collaboration policies affect team performance and teammates' perceived fairness, trust, and safety. Such a system can also be utilized to study the impact of a robot's normative behavior on team collaboration. Additionally, it allows for investigation into how the legibility and predictability of robot actions affect human-robot teamwork and perceived safety and trust. Existing systems are limited, typically involving one human and one robot, and thus require more insight into broader team dynamics. Many rely on games or virtual simulations, neglecting the impact of a robot's physical presence. Most tasks are turn-based, hindering simultaneous execution and affecting efficiency. This paper introduces CoHRT (Collaboration System for Human-Robot Teamwork), which facilitates multi-human-robot teamwork through seamless collaboration, coordination, and communication. CoHRT utilizes a server-client-based architecture, a vision-based system to track task environments, and a simple interface for team action coordination. It allows for the design of tasks considering the human teammates' physical and mental workload and varied skill labels across the team members. We used CoHRT to design a collaborative block manipulation and jigsaw puzzle-solving task in a team of one Franka Emika Panda robot and two humans. The system enables recording multi-modal collaboration data to develop adaptive collaboration policies for robots. To further utilize CoHRT, we outline potential research directions in diverse human-robot collaborative tasks.

CoHRT: A Collaboration System for Human-Robot Teamwork

TL;DR

CoHRT (Collaboration System for Human-Robot Teamwork) is introduced, which facilitates multi-human-robot teamwork through seamless collaboration, coordination, and communication and allows for the design of tasks considering the human teammates' physical and mental workload and varied skill labels across the team members.

Abstract

Collaborative robots are increasingly deployed alongside humans in factories, hospitals, schools, and other domains to enhance teamwork and efficiency. Systems that seamlessly integrate humans and robots into cohesive teams for coordinated and efficient task execution are needed, enabling studies on how robot collaboration policies affect team performance and teammates' perceived fairness, trust, and safety. Such a system can also be utilized to study the impact of a robot's normative behavior on team collaboration. Additionally, it allows for investigation into how the legibility and predictability of robot actions affect human-robot teamwork and perceived safety and trust. Existing systems are limited, typically involving one human and one robot, and thus require more insight into broader team dynamics. Many rely on games or virtual simulations, neglecting the impact of a robot's physical presence. Most tasks are turn-based, hindering simultaneous execution and affecting efficiency. This paper introduces CoHRT (Collaboration System for Human-Robot Teamwork), which facilitates multi-human-robot teamwork through seamless collaboration, coordination, and communication. CoHRT utilizes a server-client-based architecture, a vision-based system to track task environments, and a simple interface for team action coordination. It allows for the design of tasks considering the human teammates' physical and mental workload and varied skill labels across the team members. We used CoHRT to design a collaborative block manipulation and jigsaw puzzle-solving task in a team of one Franka Emika Panda robot and two humans. The system enables recording multi-modal collaboration data to develop adaptive collaboration policies for robots. To further utilize CoHRT, we outline potential research directions in diverse human-robot collaborative tasks.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 14 sections, 3 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The CoHRT System
  3. The Robot
  4. The Collaborative Task
  5. CoHRT Architecture
  6. Server Program
  7. Client Program
  8. Interaction and Synchronization
  9. CoHRT Implementation
  10. An example collaborative task
  11. Collaborative Task Execution
  12. CoHRT Evaluation Plan
  13. Extendability and Future Work
  14. Conclusion

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: A Franka Emika Panda robot collaborates with a team of two human participants. The task sequence for each participant involves first solving a jigsaw puzzle, which is either $3\times3$ or $3\times2$ in size, followed by stacking seven blocks according to a specified color pattern. The robot's role is limited to assisting the participants exclusively with the block stacking task. A graphical user interface (GUI) displays the current state of the puzzles and the block stacks.
  • Figure 2: Architecture of the human-robot collaboration system. The system consists of a server program and client programs communicating via TCP sockets. The server program includes modules for executing collaboration strategies, trajectory planning, robot control, state observation, and client handling. The client program provides a user interface for the puzzle-solving task, renders the interface, and exchanges messages with the server. The system facilitates synchronized coordination between the robot and human teammates during the collaborative task.
  • Figure 3: A visual depiction of the interaction scenario between two participants and the Franka Emika Panda robot while performing the collaborative task in the CoHRT system.