Robot-assisted medical reachback: using shared visual information

Robot assisted medical reachback (RAMR) involves remote medical personnel conducting operator- and robot-mediated victim assessment in an urban search and rescue environment. A simulated medical reachback exercise was developed to examine RAMR. Key findings suggest it is critical for providers and operators to maintain a shared visual space for developing mental models and facilitating team coordination. Communication analysis across the RAMR task revealed that shared visual information was used approximately 50% of the time to facilitate the development of shared mental models, and again approximately 50% of the time to facilitate team coordination activities. Future efforts in this research domain must further investigate the use of shared visual information to facilitate shared mental models and team coordination.