An explorative study on how human-robot interaction is taken into account by robot developers in praxis
It highlights a gap in practical application of human factors in robotics, which could impact usability and safety for end-users, but is incremental as it confirms existing concerns in the field.
This study investigated how robot development teams incorporate human-robot interaction, particularly non-verbal communication, into their design processes, finding that human perspectives are often neglected and knowledge on engineering methods is lacking, based on data from 11 teams with 68 participants.
How is human-robot interaction considered within the development of new robotic systems by practitioners? This study sets out to inquire, whether the development teams of robotic products have been considering human factor methods in their design and implementation process. We were specifically interested in the non-verbal communication methods they were aiming to implement, and how they have approached the design process for these. Although valuable insights on tasks and communication needs during the different phases of robot operation could be gathered, the results of this study indicate, that the perspective of the human user or bystander is very often neglected and that knowledge on methods for engineering human-robot interaction is missing. The study was conducted with eleven development teams consisting of robot manufacturers and students within a robot building course representing overall 68 individual participants.