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Since the 1960s, NASA has focused on exploring mars.
Initially sending flybys, NASA then moved on to launching orbiters and more recently has put efforts into developing landers and rovers. The success of the two rover
missions has proved that the work and determination of
NASA has paid off. As technology improves, the capabilities of the rovers and landers are greatly increasing
and the activity schedules of spacecraft are becoming
more complex and dynamic. Because of this increase
in complexity, scientists and rover operators are requiring improved interaction with mission schedules. The
challenge of facilitating the interaction between human
operators and the robotic rovers and landers has been
gaining importance.
The Team
In January of 2005, our team, consisting of six Masters
of HCI students from Carnegie Mellon University, was
formed. For our Masters capstone project, the Human
Computer Interaction (HCI) group at NASA Ames Research Center presented our team with the task of designing and developing an interface to facilitate in-situ
re-tasking of generalizable robotic platforms. The goal
of this interface design is to address the new challenges
of human-mission interaction.
The Challenge
As a way to test the functionality of our interface, the HCI
group at Ames developed a game that was analogous
to scientific data collection on Mars. The game has users
acquire points by taking pictures of science targets. Each
target provides points and a clue to the value of adjacent
targets. The game board consists of an area of the floor
with target blocks placed within a grid. The game pieces
are two working robots: a Personal Exploration Rover
(PER) and a Lego Mindstorm rover.
The Approach
The team approached the problem by basing our
research and core design ideas on space exploration as
well as the game. The game provided simple activity
plans and an easily understood context, which faciliated
idea generation and the design process. The game also
helped us produce simple tasks for our interface to support during usability studies.
The Design
At its core, the design supports all stages of the planning process within a unified system. This allows the
user to build a plan from the ground up, becoming more
detailed as he or she proceeds. The user starts with an
initial strategic drive path using the map, then adds key
activities such as photos within the map, and finally
adds precise detail to each activity through the use of a
unique graphical text editor. From pre-planning through
data analysis, the interface supports the user in advanced and unique ways. |
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