Faculty’s collaborative research advances human-robot teamwork

Redefining how robots and humans work together — from developing and deploying technologies to the management and evaluation of human, AI and robot teams — is the organizing principle behind the Center for Human, Artificial Intelligence, and Robot Teaming.

CHART’s many affiliate researchers are foundational to this mission, their interdisciplinary expertise driving the center’s impact across multiple fields, including space exploration, search and rescue and data privacy.

Cross-disciplinary research drives real-world impact

Take Wenlong Zhang, an associate professor in the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. His research interests lie in the design, modeling and control of cyber-physical systems, with applications to health care, robotics and manufacturing.

He is one of many researchers bringing interdisciplinary thought to CHART’s General Human Operation of Systems as Teams Lab, a stateof-the-art scientific test bed and art installation. Within the GHOST Lab, researchers examine people’s ability to work with robots and AI in scenarios such as a life-threatening meteor strike on a lunar colony.

“When we started discussions of the lab, we wanted to be able to create a space that could help us prepare for future space exploration and simultaneously be a space to simulate a group of soldiers working with next-generation army combat vehicles,” Zhang said.

Zhang was instrumental in defining GHOST Lab’s interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration as well as a place to demonstrate applicable research to mission-driven funding agencies.

Providing perspective on data privacy

Privacy researcher Rakibul Hasan believes data privacy is just as important as security, an outlook he lends to CHART’s research.

“I try to understand the problem space from the user, from the actual people who will be using the system, to know their perspectives, and then identify usable fixes and implement them,” said Hasan, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence. “Joining CHART appealed to me because we use so many techniques — from psychological and internet measurement methods to machine learning and artificial intelligence — to create real-world solutions.”

Hasan is currently working on a project on the intersection of privacy and disinformation. The project is looking into how we can truly understand what drives people to believe or not believe misinformation and how media consumption habits can affect their belief interest bases.

“One finding we had was that people who follow online sources had different results compared to those who use more traditional sources, like print or television. The first group is more likely to believe misleading misinformation,” he said.

Accelerating human-robot collaboration through algorithms

Despite impressive advances to date, one of CHART’s main focus areas, human-robot teaming, has yet to achieve the goal of general-purpose robots that act alongside humans in the real world. Introducing algorithms that will accelerate the transition of robots out of the research lab and into long-term deployment is the focus of affiliate Pooyan Fazli.

“My long-term goal is to facilitate the coordination, communication, coexistence and mutual adaptation between robots and humans in dynamic, uncertain, adversarial and multigoal environments,” said Fazli, an assistant professor at ASU's School of Arts, Media and Engineering.

“The chance to collaborate with other fellow affiliates who share these same interests is an exciting opportunity for me. I believe that together, we are stronger under CHART’s umbrella,” he said.

Applying human-dog communication to teaming research

For many years, humans have been relying on dogs for their special capabilities, such as their ability to smell and hear things beyond human perception. However, while they may outperform humans at some things, there is the inevitable complication of interaction without natural language-based communication.

This challenge is one area of research for affiliate Heather Lum, assistant professor in human systems engineering at ASU’s Polytechnic School.

“You have to be aware of what the dog is telling you. If not, you cannot be an effective teammate,” Lum said. “We teach the dogs to have purposeful disobedience when it has information we do not yet know. This comes back to human-robot teaming — what are we going to do when a robot is disobedient for a beneficial purpose to the team?”

Lum also explores human factors psychology with an emphasis on human-technology interactions. She joined CHART from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with high hopes of connecting her exciting research interests to the work of the other affiliates who are doing similar work in the field of humanrobot teaming.

“Being at such a prestigious university that has other faculty in similar fields is amazing. Bouncing ideas off each other and interacting with others who share similar areas of focus is wonderful.”