Current Projects

Modeling Synergies in Large Human-Machine Networked Systems

This proposed research will be mathematically based drawing on human data and models as necessary to accurately characterize their behavior within the system.

Reconfigurable Human-Agent Collaboration: Human Performance in Network-Centric Operations

The researchers will develop ways to increase understanding of team cognition and collaboration in network-centric warfare environments.

Large Scale Computation for Human Agent Team Coordination in Dynamic Environments

In this work we are developing techniques that allow coordination of large groups of operational assets in the execution of complex missions.

Cultural Models, Collaborations and Negotiation

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh will lead in designing, conducting, and analyzing data from online negotiation experiments. Observing interactive negotiation is necessary to capture the processes to analyze and understand the dynamics of cooperation and negotiation and tipping points that could lead to beneficial or disastrous effects.

Cyberinfrastructure for Human-Robot Interaction

This proposal seeks to integrate high dimensional data analysis and visualization tools with off-the-shelf collaboration tools to establish a cyberinfrastructure (CI) for evaluation documentation, data sharing, and cross-study comparisons.

CaveUT
Jeff Jacobson has graduated and the CaveUT panoramic display (Cave-like) software, VRGL (dome projections), and the Ancient Egypt and Pompeii Theater District modeling projects have moved with him to www.planetjeff.net

Past Projects

	Controlling Multiple UAVs Subcontract to AFRL/MNGN from OSD/DDR&E Air Force collaborators have developed and built a multi vehicle simulation and vehicle-in-the-loop testbed for wide area search munitions (WASMs).


	Controlling Robot/Agent/ Human teams for Urban Search & Rescue Technological advances can be envisioned to enable combining ad hoc coordination and interoperation of automated systems with access to diverse and previously unknown information sources, while addressing significant physical challenges.


	Robots, Agents and People Teams for USAR:This project is supported by NSF grant NSF-ITR-0205526.. Alexander Gutierrez, Terence Keegan, Kevin Oishi, Binoy Shah, Steven Shamlian, Mark Yong, and Josh Young assisted in data collection.


	High Level Information Fusion Simply bringing more raw information to decision makers in the battlefield cannot help due to pre-existing cognitive overload while naïve approaches to computer-mediated information fusion and automated decision making may make things worse by hiding needed data or confusing situational awareness.

	Directing Attention in Virtual Environments Solve Information Overload by directing attention not filtering out potentially important information

	Commercial Game Technology for Low Cost Panoramic Immersive Displays Immersive multiscreen displays can be assembled from Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components at very low cost and remarkably high performance.

	Intelligent Agents to aid Human Teams This project investigated incorporating intelligent assistants into human teams to increase the effectiveness of team decision making in joint planning tasks.

	Visual Information Retrieval Interfaces Despite decades of exposure to Boolean queries many of the public remain unsure of their semantics. Vector based retrieval, as presented on the Web, is even more opaque, allowing users to search without knowing how the terms they type in are combined or used.

	Analogical Interfaces This research addressed the questions of: 1) cognitive mechanisms involved in high bandwidth interaction with our environment and 2) methods to exploit those mechanisms for HCI.

	Build Your Own PC-Based Cave With CaveUT: The design is specifically for a two-walled portable immersive panormic display using CaveUT for software, but the techiques shown readily generalize to far more complex displays with up to 32 screens.

	Temple of Horus This is a hypothetical Egyptian temple, which was built under the artistic direction of Dr. Lynn Holden (an Egyptologist) in 1993.

	The Temple of Isis A reconstruction of the Temple of Isis in the Roman city of Pompeii as may have appeared in 79ad.

	Slippery Motion Research As we move through the natural world, we use a variety of visuo-motor reflexes to move around objects in our path.

	Virtual Metropol A SIMLAB project that never got distributed. It includes a simple VRML version of the Metropol, a nightclub here in Pittsburgh.