Experimental Environments for Dismounted Human-Robot Multimodal Communications

The goal for multimodal communication (MMC) is to facilitate the conveyance of information through various modalities, such as auditory, visual, and tactile. MMC has become a major focus for enabling human-robot teaming, but it is often the case that the technological-state of robot capabilities is limited for research and development. Currently, robots often serve a single role, not equipped to interact dynamically with human team members. However, before that functionality is developed, it is important to understand what robot capability is needed for effective collaboration. Through the use of simulations, controlled systematic evaluation of MMC input and output devices can be evaluated to garner a better understanding of how to apply MMC with respect to user's abilities and preferences, as well as assess the communication hardware and software functionality. An experiment will be presented and discussed to illustrate this approach.