Research project launched to promote interaction between humans and robots in industry

Led by Heriot-Watt University, home to the National Robotarium, the £3 million project will bring together expertise in robotics, cognitive science and psychology with colleagues from Imperial College London and the University of Manchester.

Autonomous systems that make decisions and perform tasks without human intervention are already deployed in industry. However, their use is largely limited to controlled settings, such as on automated production lines.

These systems can struggle when the task becomes more complex or the environment is uncontrolled, for example, when drones are used for offshore windfarm inspection.

The project is part of the government backed UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) council’s Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) programme, funded through the UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund and delivered by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The TAS programme brings together key stakeholders to drive forward cross-disciplinary fundamental research to ensure that autonomous systems are safe, reliable, resilient, ethical and trusted.

The project, led by Professor Helen Hastie from Heriot-Watt University and the Edinburgh Centre of Robotics, will explore solutions to manage trust in autonomous systems, covering scenarios that require interaction with humans. Examples include self-driving cars, autonomous wheelchairs or collaborative robots, ‘cobots’ in the workforce.

The group’s work will help design the autonomous systems of the future, ensuring they are widely used and accepted in a variety of industry-relevant applications.

Professor Hastie explains: “The challenge of managing trust between the human and the autonomous system is particularly difficult because there can be a lack of mutual understanding of the task and the environment. The new consortium will perform foundational research on how humans, robots and autonomous systems can work together by building a shared reality through human-robot interaction.”

TAS is comprised of seven distinct research areas or ‘Nodes’: trust, responsibility, resilience, security, functionality, verifiability, governance and regulation. Each Node will receive just over £3 million in funding from UKRI to conduct its research.

The academic consortium includes Professor Yiannis Demiris of Imperial College London, Professor Angelo Cangelosi of the University of Manchester and Professor Thusha Rajendran from Heriot-Watt University.

www.hw.ac.uk/uk/research/the-national-robotarium.htm