Meaningful human control and variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting
Introduction: Humans and robots are increasingly collaborating on complex tasks such as firefighting. As robots are becoming more autonomous, collaboration in human-robot teams should be combined with meaningful human control. Variable autonomy approaches can ensure meaningful human control over rob...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2024-02-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Robotics and AI |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2024.1323980/full |
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| author | Ruben S. Verhagen Ruben S. Verhagen Mark A. Neerincx Mark A. Neerincx Myrthe L. Tielman Myrthe L. Tielman |
| author_facet | Ruben S. Verhagen Ruben S. Verhagen Mark A. Neerincx Mark A. Neerincx Myrthe L. Tielman Myrthe L. Tielman |
| author_sort | Ruben S. Verhagen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Introduction: Humans and robots are increasingly collaborating on complex tasks such as firefighting. As robots are becoming more autonomous, collaboration in human-robot teams should be combined with meaningful human control. Variable autonomy approaches can ensure meaningful human control over robots by satisfying accountability, responsibility, and transparency. To verify whether variable autonomy approaches truly ensure meaningful human control, the concept should be operationalized to allow its measurement. So far, designers of variable autonomy approaches lack metrics to systematically address meaningful human control.Methods: Therefore, this qualitative focus group (n = 5 experts) explored quantitative operationalizations of meaningful human control during dynamic task allocation using variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting. This variable autonomy approach requires dynamic allocation of moral decisions to humans and non-moral decisions to robots, using robot identification of moral sensitivity. We analyzed the data of the focus group using reflexive thematic analysis.Results: Results highlight the usefulness of quantifying the traceability requirement of meaningful human control, and how situation awareness and performance can be used to objectively measure aspects of the traceability requirement. Moreover, results emphasize that team and robot outcomes can be used to verify meaningful human control but that identifying reasons underlying these outcomes determines the level of meaningful human control.Discussion: Based on our results, we propose an evaluation method that can verify if dynamic task allocation using variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting ensures meaningful human control over the robot. This method involves subjectively and objectively quantifying traceability using human responses during and after simulations of the collaboration. In addition, the method involves semi-structured interviews after the simulation to identify reasons underlying outcomes and suggestions to improve the variable autonomy approach. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T09:06:14Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3c4d10c1ef7b47269d5c91441d37f3d6 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2296-9144 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T09:06:14Z |
| publishDate | 2024-02-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Robotics and AI |
| spelling | doaj.art-3c4d10c1ef7b47269d5c91441d37f3d62024-02-01T04:38:43ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Robotics and AI2296-91442024-02-011110.3389/frobt.2024.13239801323980Meaningful human control and variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefightingRuben S. Verhagen0Ruben S. Verhagen1Mark A. Neerincx2Mark A. Neerincx3Myrthe L. Tielman4Myrthe L. Tielman5Interactive Intelligence, Intelligent Systems Department, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NetherlandsAI*MAN Lab, Intelligent Systems Department, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NetherlandsInteractive Intelligence, Intelligent Systems Department, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NetherlandsHuman-Machine Teaming, Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Soesterberg, NetherlandsInteractive Intelligence, Intelligent Systems Department, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NetherlandsAI*MAN Lab, Intelligent Systems Department, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NetherlandsIntroduction: Humans and robots are increasingly collaborating on complex tasks such as firefighting. As robots are becoming more autonomous, collaboration in human-robot teams should be combined with meaningful human control. Variable autonomy approaches can ensure meaningful human control over robots by satisfying accountability, responsibility, and transparency. To verify whether variable autonomy approaches truly ensure meaningful human control, the concept should be operationalized to allow its measurement. So far, designers of variable autonomy approaches lack metrics to systematically address meaningful human control.Methods: Therefore, this qualitative focus group (n = 5 experts) explored quantitative operationalizations of meaningful human control during dynamic task allocation using variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting. This variable autonomy approach requires dynamic allocation of moral decisions to humans and non-moral decisions to robots, using robot identification of moral sensitivity. We analyzed the data of the focus group using reflexive thematic analysis.Results: Results highlight the usefulness of quantifying the traceability requirement of meaningful human control, and how situation awareness and performance can be used to objectively measure aspects of the traceability requirement. Moreover, results emphasize that team and robot outcomes can be used to verify meaningful human control but that identifying reasons underlying these outcomes determines the level of meaningful human control.Discussion: Based on our results, we propose an evaluation method that can verify if dynamic task allocation using variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting ensures meaningful human control over the robot. This method involves subjectively and objectively quantifying traceability using human responses during and after simulations of the collaboration. In addition, the method involves semi-structured interviews after the simulation to identify reasons underlying outcomes and suggestions to improve the variable autonomy approach.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2024.1323980/fullmeaningful human controlvariable autonomyhuman-robot teamsdynamic task allocationthematic analysis |
| spellingShingle | Ruben S. Verhagen Ruben S. Verhagen Mark A. Neerincx Mark A. Neerincx Myrthe L. Tielman Myrthe L. Tielman Meaningful human control and variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting Frontiers in Robotics and AI meaningful human control variable autonomy human-robot teams dynamic task allocation thematic analysis |
| title | Meaningful human control and variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting |
| title_full | Meaningful human control and variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting |
| title_fullStr | Meaningful human control and variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting |
| title_full_unstemmed | Meaningful human control and variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting |
| title_short | Meaningful human control and variable autonomy in human-robot teams for firefighting |
| title_sort | meaningful human control and variable autonomy in human robot teams for firefighting |
| topic | meaningful human control variable autonomy human-robot teams dynamic task allocation thematic analysis |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2024.1323980/full |
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