Journal of Cognitive Engineering & Decision Making

Special Issue on Improving Human-Robot Interaction
By Haydee M. Cuevas, SA Technologies, & Special Issue Administrative Liaison

     We invite your contributions to a special issue of the Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, "Improving Human-Robot Interaction [HRI] in Complex Operational Environments: Translating Theory into Practice." The primary goal of this special issue is to present practical, useful, theoretically based, and empirically validated recommendations for the design of systems and processes to support HRI in complex operational environments. Another goal will be to delineate a "research roadmap" that highlights areas warranting further investigation.

     The last decade has seen an unprecedented proliferation in the use of robots in a broad range of complex domains, such as urban search and rescue, military operations (e.g., explosive ordinance disposal, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), scientific exploration in underwater and space expeditions, law enforcement (e.g., bomb squads), manufacturing, and health care (e.g., telerobotic surgery). Remotely controlled ground, aerial, sea surface, and underwater robotic vehicles are being utilized as tools to safely extend the sensory and psychomotor capabilities of humans to remote environments. More important, with the ever-increasing technological sophistication in their design and capabilities, robots are becoming more than mere tools. They now can be seen as quasi-team members whose tasks and behaviors have to be integrated with the task requirements and expectations of their human teammates.

     Accordingly, in the past decade, the scientific research community has focused considerable attention on developing a better understanding of the technical and social issues that affect human-robot interaction, particularly in the context of teams. To increase the utility of this growing body of work, researchers must be able to translate their theories and empirical findings into practical, useful guidance for improving HRI across various domains. In turn, these findings could potentially generate new research, such as further empirical validation of proposed design recommendations in different contexts and the development and validation of theoretical and quantitative models of human performance in HRI.

     We are seeking theoretical, methodological, and empirical papers that address issues including (but not limited to) the following topic areas:

• Sensor interpretation and integration: information visualization; object recognition; motion awareness
• Manipulation: teleoperation and motor control such as during mine removal; urban search and rescue; and reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition
• Navigation: local and global spatial comprehension; robot localization; motion awareness; cognitive maps
• Planning: decision making; task prioritization; contingency planning; dynamic replanning
• Multiple robot operations: operator-to-robot ratio; attention (focused and divided); task switching; situation awareness; adaptive automation
• Team performance: human-human group dynamics; collaboration and coordination; shared situation awareness
• Trust and acceptance: human-robot group dynamics; anthropomorphism; system reliability
• Technological issues: system capabilities and limitations; latency; bandwidth; use of multiple modalities
• Research issues: scaled real-world testbeds versus simulated virtual environments; platform-specific versus platform-general considerations (e.g., UGV vs. UAV); metrics/measures and benchmarks; individual differences

     Please include a final section in your submission that explicitly and succinctly demonstrates how your research findings can be translated into practice. This section should be formatted as a bulleted list of guidelines, lessons learned, or implications for practice, with a brief rationale that explains and supports each statement.

     Manuscripts should be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Review the JCEDM "Information for Contributors" Web page for more specific instructions. Manuscripts should be no more than 25-30 double-spaced pages. The title page, abstract, and author biographies do not count toward the page limit.

     The closing date for submissions is November 15, 2009. Please let us know by October 15, 2009 if you are planning to submit a paper. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically; indicate that this is a special issue submission when you upload your paper.

     Please direct inquiries regarding the suitability of work to the Special Issue Guest Editors (see contact information below). For technical questions (e.g., formatting, review status, etc.), please contact me.

Special Issue Guest Editors

Jennifer M. Riley, SA Technologies

Patricia L. McDermott, Alion Science & Technology

Douglas J. Gillan, North Carolina State University

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