See Something, Say Something: Context-Criticality-Aware Mobile Robot Communication for Hazard Mitigations
For developers of safety-critical autonomous mobile robots, this work provides a method to improve response speed and user trust by dynamically adjusting communication based on hazard criticality.
The paper proposes a context-criticality-aware communication framework for autonomous mobile robots that uses VLM/LLM-based perception to adapt message urgency based on hazard context, achieving 82% user trust and faster response times compared to fixed-priority baselines in over 60 runs.
The proverb ``see something, say something'' captures a core responsibility of autonomous mobile robots in safety-critical situations: when they detect a hazard, they must communicate--and do so quickly. In emergency scenarios, delayed or miscalibrated responses directly increase the time to action and the risk of damage. We argue that a systematic context-sensitive assessment of the criticality level, time sensitivity, and feasibility of mitigation is necessary for AMRs to reduce time to action and respond effectively. This paper presents a framework in which VLM/LLM-based perception drives adaptive message generation, for example, a knife in a kitchen produces a calm acknowledgment; the same object in a corridor triggers an urgent coordinated alert. Validation in 60+ runs using a patrolling mobile robot not only empowers faster response, but also brings user trusts to 82\% compared to fixed-priority baselines, validating that structured criticality assessment improves both response speed and mitigation effectiveness.