X. Wang (Ed.): Mixed Reality and Human-Robot Interaction, ISCA 47, pp. 35–51. springerlink.com © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2011 Mental Transformations in Human-Robot Interaction B.P. DeJong 1 , J.E. Colgate 2 , and M.A. Peshkin 2 1 Central Michigan University, USA 2 Northwestern University, USA Abstract. Human-robot interfaces can be challenging and tiresome because of misalignments in the control and view relationships. The human user must mentally transform (e.g., rotate or translate) desired robot actions to required inputs at the interface. These mental transformations can increase task difficulty and decrease task performance. This chapter discusses how to improve task performance by decreasing the mental transformations in a human-robot interface. It presents a mathematical framework, reviews relevant background, analyzes both single and multiple camera-display interfaces, and presents the implementation of a mentally efficient interface. Keywords: Mental transformation, control rotation, control translation, view rotation, teleoperation. 1 Introduction In the summer of 1997, Argonne National Laboratory spent 2000 man-hours and $1.38 million dismantling their recently decommissioned nuclear reactor (Department of Energy, 1998). Rather than place humans in the radioactive environment, Argonne used a remotely controlled robotic system called the Dual Arm Work Platform (DAWP), consisting of two six-degree-of-freedom robotic arms and several tilt/pan/zoom cameras (Figure 1). Human operators sat at a console with several fixed video monitors and controlled the robots via two passive manipulanda 1 (Noakes et al., 2002). The use of teleoperation 2 was cost-effective, but Argonne personnel noted several problems. First, training the operators was time-consuming and expensive; only 60% of the tested operators were skilled enough to complete tasks. Second, operators spent nearly 90% of the their time prepping rather than performing tasks. Finally, the teleoperation was mentally tiring, especially when performing complex tasks that required switching between multiple camera views (DeJong et al., 2004b). 1 Manipulandum is a general term for the device that controls another, e.g., a joystick or kinematically-similar replica of the robot. 2 Teleoperation is operation of a machine or robot at a distance.