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Author Conne Mara Bazley & Nikko Van Stolk |
| Abstract Would you feel safe and comfortable working side by side on a task with a robot? Researchers conducted Human Machine Interface (HMI) Testing for a proposed new robot as an additional team member for a warehouse facility. The overall purpose of this project was to explore how to build human/robot trust, robot communication, human expectations from robot behaviour, and how to measure the positive or negative effects relating to trust as we test HMI variables. Because of the size and weight of the robot, Virtual Reality (VR) was used to simulate the warehouse environment to test the VR robot. The researchers created four VR sessions to test the new robot and obtained the reactions and responses of 10 participants. Most participants did not have a significant change in their trust in robots' baseline responses. Participants showed overall trust in robots and their comfort and trust in working with the new proposed robot and the new robot's capabilities. Participant comments about suggested further robot improvements were gathered and accompanied the results. The researchers discovered that the HMI testing for the robot was more about defining the borders of comfort rather than trust. Additionally, researchers discovered to first deal with the psychology of trust and comfort, then concentrate on robot indicators. Additional HMI Testing using VR is planned for the proposed changes for the new robot and future new robots and contemporary design and development features. |