Abstract
As autonomous systems become increasingly integrated into more workplaces in the modern era, it is becoming critically important to analyze their future role in society. This not only includes their physical potential and faster processing speed which might allow them to become more efficient labor, but also social and organizational considerations too. As robots take on more complex tasks and operate alongside human teams there is an increasing interest in understanding how they fit into established team dynamics.
Our technical project was following up on a previous capstone team’s attempt to build a robot that could switch between being bipedal and quadrupedal for use on a navy ship. The purpose of this robot was to be able to climb stairs and over hatches in order to ship supplies between points autonomously. As the scope of this project extended beyond our current year, our capstone team decided to focus mainly on building a new frame for the robot that could handle the stresses of its own movement. Alongside this we were also tasked with increasing the robot’s size while maintaining or reducing its total weight. This involved reconstructing each major body part and changing the existing motor placements. In the end, the new frame we successfully constructed was able to meet original criteria. By being made of mostly 3D printed PLA plastic components, we were able to increase our robot’s height by about a foot while keeping total weight relatively the same. We were also able to implement, sync, and control the motors involved in controlling the arms of the robot and tested its range of motion. While we were able to accomplish much during a year’s worth of work, this technical project is incremental and there are a lot of potential improvements that can be made.
My STS research involved conducting a literature review to see if results/concepts found in human-autonomy teaming (HAT) research were supported by existing human team theory. Results from my research seem to indicate certain concepts such as communication, coordination, trust, and team stability does follow team theory fundamentally. HAT research, however, primarily examines teams statically and could overlook potential dynamic aspects of team development that could significantly affect the results of their research. Alongside this, certain aspects pertaining to the nature of autonomous intelligence could also affect team effectiveness negatively and need to be taken into account when adding or replacing team members. Some of these aspects would include both potential negative perception of the autonomous team member as well as needing to communicate with autonomous members in a very strict manner. Due to these potential faults that differentiate autonomous team members from human ones, ideal HAT, where human and autonomous team members are interchangeable, is unlikely to be assimilated in the modern workplace.
I believe that there has been a lot more that I could have done in both my technical project and STS research but wasn’t able to due to the time constraints and lack of experience. On the technical project, there were several parts of the robot that will need to be updated later due to either lack of strength or difficulty of assembly. We were also unable to move any of the motors on the robot outside of the arms. This was mainly due to the wiring of the robot and the addition of the transforming feet which added extra weight that our group didn’t account for. On the STS project, I wished to have increased the amount of data I used in the research paper overall. This includes both the amount of research I have done on HAT as well as communications research. The team dynamics book in particular that I used as a frame of reference also primarily addressed human teams in a temporal framework. Although it provided a very different and interesting perspective to the ideas of human teaming overall, it caused issues when trying to compare concepts introduced in the book with HAT. I also had to cut out sections of my research paper in order to reduce written research to a reasonable length. One major idea that I wasn’t really able to cover in the research that should be investigated for future research is the origins and development of the ideal HAT idea. Overall though, I have learned much through the year’s research process on robotics and think that the progress made was fruitful.
Notes
School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering
Technical Advisor: Tomonari Furukawa
STS Advisor: Kent Wayland
Technical Team Members: Morgan Carr, Ekow Daniels, Jack de Bruyn Kops, Amelia Dinsmore, Colin Halligan, Caron Peters, Dorian Thomson
