Variable Autonomy for Human-Robot Teaming (VAT)

As robots are introduced to various domains and applications, Human-Robot Teaming (HRT) capabilities are essential. Such capabilities involve teaming with humans in\ on\ out-the-loop at different levels of abstraction, leveraging the complementing capabilities of humans and robots. This requires robotic systems with the ability to dynamically vary their level or degree of autonomy to collaborate with the human(s) efficiently and overcome various challenging circumstances. Variable Autonomy (VA) is an umbrella term encompassing such research, including but not limited to shared control and shared autonomy, mixed-initiative, adjustable autonomy, and sliding autonomy.