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Understanding collective behaviour in
disaster & emergency response
Joanne Hinds
Ana Calderon
Rachid Hourizi
Peter Johnson
What are Human-Autonomous
Systems?
• Collections of human and autonomous agents
• Defense, disasters and emergency response, search and
rescue, transport
Human-Autonomous Systems
Collective Capability
Current challenges
Providing the right information to the right agent at the right time
Overcoming inflexible, rule bound behaviour
Quality and trustworthiness of decision-making
Overall Aims:
To enable multiple agencies (autonomous and human) to work together to increase the collective capability of the whole human-autonomous system
To enable HAS to achieve their objective in a safe, agile and efficient manner
Studies
Study 1:
How do humans respond to dynamic events in a
disaster?
Study 2:
How does a group attempt to solve a wicked problem?
Large-scale emergencies and
crises
Typically have:
Decentralised response and rescue effort
Volatile, unpredicatable, conflicting information
Efforts are increasingly incorporating human and autonomous agents
The role of autonomous
systems in emergencies Autonomous systems can help a variety of people
in a variety of circumstances
From official responders to locals on the ground
Study – Human Autonomous
Systems in crisis Qualitative study
Hurricane scenario
21 students/staff Bath University
Emergency responder immersed in a HAS
Commands and reports issued by:
Issued by humans (trained responders or locals on the ground) or
autonomous agents
Co-located or remote
Urgent or non-urgent
Addressing HAS Challenges Questions
To what extent do agents follow commands and how flexible are they with execution?
What information do agents seek/report and why?
HAS Challenges
Providing right information to the right agent at the right time
Quality and trustworthiness
Overcoming flexible, rule bound behaviour
Properties of information
Conflicting
Uncertain
Rapidly changing
Rule bound
Scenario
No.3 CoupleUrgent
No.2 1 elderly
ladyUrgent
No. 1Family of
4Non-
urgent
No. 5Family of
3Urgent
No. 4 Student house of
6Non-
urgent
No. 6 Flats
30 residents disabledUrgent
No. 8 Shop
Family of 8
Non-urgent
No. 10Couple
Non-urgent
No. 7 –Offices
30 peopleUrgent
No.91
residentNon-
urgent
Drop-off point
Commands Injured and disabled people are prioritised for evacuation
Only evacuate people classified as “urgent”
Evacuate buildings with the highest numbers of people first
Always fill the boat to full capacity before returning to the drop-off point
Provide regular reports (updates) to your collaborators so they can coordinate their actions and respond most effectively.
Findings Thematic analysis
Commands
Integration
Compliance with original commands
Reports
Reprioritisation
Compliance with original commands
Clarification
Findings - Command
Compliance with original commands – “Return to
the drop-off point” (Non-urgent)
“If it’s from my supervisor…. I could maybe look for 10
minutes so I still may not go immediately, I might see what
the situation was. If I could get them in the boat quickly I
would, so I would go against direct orders a little bit but I
would make my way back to the drop off point quickly.”
“Ignore it, because it is non- urgent.”
Findings - Report
Clarification – “Entrance to no. 8 is blocked” (Non-urgent)
“I would send for the UAV to check and see what it is because it doesn’t look like high priority so if it checks, I can keep going with what I’m doing. I’ll wait for the report and then I can reprioritise if necessary.”
Reprioritisation – “There is a distressed cry for help from house no.2” (Urgent)
“I could pick her up on one of my trips, if I just get three and then get one….Yeah, I’ll take 3 instead and then pick her up on the way.”
Conclusions Responders utilised autonomous systems to aid their
workload through delegation and clarification
Behaviour was rule bound, yet there was some
flexibility
Dynamic events influenced trustworthiness
Work in Progress: Study 2
Wicked problem solving – “in the wild”
Members of the collective:
Searching for information
Sharing information
Cryptic tasks and clues
HAS Challenges
Timing of information
Quality/trustworthiness
Flexibility
Summary Autonomous systems are improving collective
capability
Emergency response and wicked problems
Addressing HAS challenges (timing of information,
flexibility, quality) by exploring decision making,
information exchange and rationales
Aiming to make HAS more efficient, safe and agile
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