Human-Robot Team Performance Compared to Full Robot Autonomy in 16 Real-World Search and Rescue Missions: Adaptation of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge

Human operators in human-robot teams are commonly perceived to be critical for mission success. To explore the direct and perceived impact of operator input on task success and team performance, 16 real-world missions (10 h) were conducted based on the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. Missions involved deploying a heterogeneous team of robots to locate and identify artefacts such as climbing rope, drills and a mannequin representing a human survivor. Two conditions were evaluated: human operators that could control the robot team with state-of-the-art autonomy (Human-Robot Team) compared to autonomous missions without human operator input (Robot-Autonomy). Human interventions included creating waypoints to prioritise high-yield areas, and to navigate through error-prone spaces. Human-Robot Teams were often in directed autonomy mode (70% of mission time), found more items ( \(+\) 10.52%), traversed more distance ( \(+\) 12.71%), covered more unique ground ( \(+\) 10.56%), and longer time between safety-related events (34%). In routine conditions, both condition scores were comparable for artefacts, distance and coverage. Human-Robot Teams were faster at finding the first artefact but slower to respond to information from the robot team. Overall, operators contribute to mission-based outcomes, help to overcome environmental situations that can impede progress, and can assist robots to recover faster from difficult events.