Abstract
Interaction with robots in military applications is trending away from teleoperation and towards collaboration. Enabling this transition requires technologies for natural and intuitive communication between Soldiers and robots. Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) systems designed using a well-defined lexicon are likely to be more robust to the challenges of dynamic and noisy environments inherent to military operations. To successfully apply this approach to ASR development, lexicons should involve an early focus on the target audience. To facilitate development a vocabulary focused at the squad level for Human Robot Interaction (HRI), 31 Soldiers from Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning, GA provided hypothetical commands for directing an autonomous robot to perform a variety of spatial navigation and reconnaissance tasks. These commands were analyzed, using word frequency counts and heuristics, to determine the structure and word choice of commands. Results presented provide a baseline Squad Level Vocabulary (SLV) and a foundation for development of HRI technologies enabling multi-modal communications within mixed-initiative teams.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
CBS News: U.S. Army general says robots could replace one-fourth of combat soldiers by 2030. In: CBS News, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/robotic-soldiers-by-2030-us-army-general-says-robots-may-replace-combat-soldiers/ (accessed January 23, 2014)
Magnuson, S.: “Robot Army” in Afghanistan surgest past 2,000 units. National Defense Magazine, http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=300 (accessed February 2, 2011)
Office of the Secretary of Defense: Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap: FY2013-2038., Washington D.C (2013)
Redden, E., Carstens, C., Pettit, R.: Intuitive speech-based robotic control. Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD (2010)
Cosenzo, K., Capstick, E., Pomranky, R., Dungrani, S., Johnson, T.: Soldier Machine Interface for Vehicle Formations: Interface Design and an Approach Evaluation and Experimentation. Technical Report ATRL-TR-4678, Aberdeen Proving Ground (2009)
Ososky, S., Schuster, D., Jentsch, F., Fiore, S., Shumaker, R., Lebiere, C., Kurup, U., Oh, J., Stentz, A.: The importance of shared mental models and shared situation awareness for transforming robots from tools to teammates. In: Proceedings of the 2012 SPIE Defense Security & Sensing Symposium (Unmanned Systems Technology XIV Conference DS114), Baltimore, MD (2012)
Pettitt, R.A., Redden, E., Carsten, C.B.: Scalablity of Robotic Controllers: Speech-based Robotic Controller Evaluation (ARL-TR-4858). Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD: US Army Research Laboratory, 1-46 (2009)
Tellex, S., Kollar, T., Dickerson, S., Walter, M., Banerjee, A., Teller, S., Roy, N.: Understanding natural language commands for robotic navigation and mobile manipulation. In: Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2011)
Anusuya, M., Katti, S.: Speech recognition by machine: A review. International Journal of Speech Technology 6(3), 181–205 (2009)
Yucong, D., Cruz, C.: Formalizing semantic of natural language through conceptualization from existence. International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology 2(1), 37–42 (2011)
Pigeon, S., Swail, C., Geoffrois, E., Bruckner, G., Van Leeuwen, D., Teixeira, C., Orman, O., Collins, P., Anderson, T., Grieco, J., Zissman, M.: Use of Speech and Language Technology in Military Environments, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Montreal, Canada (2005)
Williamson, D., Barry, T., Liggett, K.: Flight Test Results of ITT VRS-1290 in NASA OV-10, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH (1996)
Karis, D., Dobroth, K.: Psychological and Human Factors Issues in the Design of Speech Recognition Systems. In: Syrdal, A., Bennett, R., Greenspan, S. (eds.) Applied Speech Technology, pp. 359–388. CRC Press, Ann Arbor (1995)
Phillips, E., Rivera, J., Jentsch, F.: Developing a tactical language for future robotic teammates. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, Santa Monica, CA (2013)
Ishihara, S.: Tests for color-blindness. Hongo Harukicho, Handaya (1917)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Barber, D., Wohleber, R.W., Parchment, A., Jentsch, F., Elliott, L. (2014). Development of a Squad Level Vocabulary for Human-Robot Interaction. In: Shumaker, R., Lackey, S. (eds) Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality. Designing and Developing Virtual and Augmented Environments. VAMR 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8525. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07458-0_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07458-0_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07457-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07458-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)