Indoor Human–Mobile Robot Encounters: A Transdisciplinary Study on Perceived Safety

Despite the rise of mobile robot deployments in community settings, the perceived safety of cohabitants remains understudied in many domains. To address this gap, we perform a study to identify elements of indoor human–mobile robot encounters that impact perceived safety. This study evaluates the effects of robot movement behavior and the number of robots nearby on perceived safety of participants. Further, this article investigates how the presence of other people impacts perceived safety in such settings. We leverage methodologies from physiological signal analysis, autonomy, surveys, and qualitative interviews to decode insights into the human experience during such encounters. Particularly, signal analysis yielded that the presence of multiple robots decreases perceived safety and that search behaviors were more comfortable than navigation behaviors. Similarly, interviews with participants demonstrated clear effects on perceived safety in the presence of others, and that sensemaking was a key component involved in their perceptions of safety. When the data were combined, interview data revealed that near collisions between the robots likely confounded the signal analysis findings with respect to the number of robots and their movement behavior. The data types agree that the presence of a robot impacts perceived safety; however, there are also conflicting results that we discuss, which highlight that near-collisions impact perceived safety. In aggregate, the study illustrates the benefits of leveraging eclectic methods to ascertain deeper insights. Overall, the article aims to unlock insights into human perceptions during encounters with community embedded robots, which can be used in the future design of such systems.