Harmonised movement builds trust between humans and robots

The findings from Bristol University could help users like the emergency services to work more effectively with robots in the future. A paper detailing the work can be found here.

By sensing co-movement in real-world environments, robots could use this as an indicator to sense whether the user trusts them sufficiently.

In a statement, lead author Dr Edmund Hunt, based in Bristol University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, said: “People have preferred social distances from others during interaction and their proximity shapes engagement.

“This is true for human-robot interaction as well. The way a robot moves can also convey information to a user – humans quickly perceive apparent goal-directed behaviour from robot motion.

“We wanted to understand whether how humans and mobile robots move together – co-movement through a space such as a building – can affect levels of trust in the robot.”

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The team predicted that if robots can move alongside humans in a synchronised way it would build trust – and conversely, that if a user distrusts a robot, the co-movement will be disrupted.