Semi-Autonomous Robot to Better Understand the Connections Between Machine and User

Semi-autonomous robots have shown potential for practical applications in which a robot’s autonomous actions and human teleoperation are jointly used to accomplish difficult tasks. A system that combines the ‘intentions’ of different agents, such as an algorithm and a human user, that are collectively used to operate a single robot is called collaborative control.

 Tomonori Kubota, Study First Author and Researcher, Department of Systems Innovation, Osaka University

In the experiment, the scientists looked at whether, when they controlled a portion of the robot’s body, the teleoperator’s attitude would be more similar to that of the semi-autonomous robot. Prior to the trial, subjects were asked to rank a collection of 10 artworks. Users were then placed in one of three settings for operating a robot that resembled a human.

Participants either controlled the robot’s hand motion and grin function, or they had no control over it at all. The android was subsequently seen talking to a different volunteer who was truly working with the experimenters. The experimenters tracked how much the android’s recommendation of the sixth-ranked artwork affected the robot operator’s later evaluation of that work.

This study reveals that when a person operates a part of the body of an android robot that autonomously interacts with a human, the person's attitudes come to closely align with the robot’s attitudes.

Hiroshi Ishiguro, Study Senior Author and Researcher, Department of Systems Innovation, Osaka University

This research suggests that designers should be aware of the ways operators may be impacted by their role with subliminal changes in attitude in future implementations of “human-robot collaborations.”

Journal Reference:

Kubota, T., et al. (2022) Alignment of the attitude of teleoperators with that of a semi-autonomous android. Scientific Reports. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-13829-3.