Patrick Borges Rodrigues is a civil engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Southern California (USC). He is part of the Innovation in Integrated Informatics LAB (iLAB), working under the supervision of Dr. Burcin Becerik-Gerber and Dr. Lucio Soibelman. His current research focuses on the design of sensory-enhanced human-centered interfaces for demolition robots. He earned his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the State University of Santa Cruz (Brazil) and his master's degree in construction management from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He is pursuing two master's degrees at USC, one in civil engineering, with an emphasis on Advanced Design and Construction Technologies, and another in Computer Science.
Although the number of remotely operated and teleoperated robots deployed on construction sites has recently increased, operational and safety challenges persist in some applications. For demolition applications, specifically, remotely operated demolition robots require operators to work near the robots, which still exposes operators to the risks of structural collapses, falling objects, excessive noise levels, and toxic particulate matter, among others. Alternatively, for teleoperated demolition robots, some existing interfaces are relatively primitive, which can increase operators' cognitive loads and compromise their task and safety performances. At the same time, other teleoperation interfaces for demolition robots are too complex, which requires experts such as engineers or roboticists to control them. This presentation describes our ongoing efforts to develop a sensory-enhanced human-centered teleoperation interface for demolition robots. We employed a community-engaged approach in which demolition professionals informed the design of the proposed teleoperation interface through an iterative process that included understanding the operators' sensory needs during demolition tasks, prototyping sensory-enhanced features for the interface, and testing these features with demolition operators. We also discuss the results of user studies that assessed the effectiveness of some of the proposed sensory features of the interface. Beyond that, we discuss the implications of the proposed interface for workers' safety and well-being, labor shortages, and accessibility in demolition works.