Adjustable Autonomy for Human-Centered Autonomous Systems on Mars

We expect a variety of autonomous systems, from rovers to life-support systems, to play a critical role in the success of manned Mars missions. The crew and ground support personnel will want to control and be informed by these systems at varying levels of detail depending on the situation. Moreover, these systems will need to operate safely in the presence of people and cooperate with them effectively. We call such autonomous systems human-centered in contrast with traditional Òblack-boxÓ autonomous systems. Our goal is to design a framework for human-centered autonomous systems that enables users to interact with these systems at whatever level of control is most appropriate whenever they so choose, but minimize the necessity for such interaction. This paper discusses on-going research at the NASA Ames Research Center and the Johnson Space Center in developing human-centered autonomous systems that can be used for a manned Mars mission.