Exposure to soft robots reduces humans’ fears about working with them

Seeing robots made with soft, flexible parts in action seems to reduce people’s anxiety about working with them or even being replaced by them.

A Washington State University study found that watching videos of a software robot working with a person to pick and place tasks reduced viewers’ safety concerns and feelings of job insecurity. ‘job. This was true even when the soft robot was shown working in close proximity to the person. This finding shows that soft robots have a potential psychological advantage over rigid robots made of metal or other hard materials.

“Previous research has generally shown that the closer you are to a rigid robot, the more negative your reactions, but we did not find these results in this study of soft robots,” said lead author Tahira Probst , professor of psychology at WSU.

Currently, human workers and rigid robots must maintain a set distance for safety reasons, but as this study indicates, the proximity of soft robots could be not only physically safer, but also more psychologically accepted.

“This finding needs to be replicated, but if it persists, it means humans could work more closely with soft robots,” Probst said.

The study, published in the journal IISE transactions on work ergonomics and human factors, found that faster interactions with a soft robot tended to elicit more negative responses, but when study participants had previous experience with robots, faster speed didn’t bother them. In fact, they preferred faster interactions. This reinforces the conclusion that greater familiarity increases overall comfort with soft robots.

According to Probst, about half of occupations will likely involve some type of automation over the next two decades, particularly those related to manufacturing, transportation, extraction and agriculture.

Soft robots, made from flexible materials like fabric and rubber, are still a relatively new technology compared to rigid robots already widely used in manufacturing.

Rigid robots have many limitations, including their high cost and high safety concerns. Two problems that soft robots can potentially solve, said Ming Luo, study co-author and assistant professor in WSU’s School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.

“We make soft robots that are naturally safe, so we don’t need to focus a lot on expensive hardware and sensors to ensure safety, as is the case with rigid robots,” Luo said.

As an example, Luo noted that a rigid robot used for apple picking could cost around $30,000, while the current research and development cost for a soft robot, encompassing all components and manufacturing, is less than $5,000. Furthermore, this cost could be significantly reduced if production was increased.

Luo’s team is developing soft robots for a range of functions, including fruit picking, pruning and pollination. Software robots can also help elderly or disabled people at home or in healthcare settings. There’s still a long way to go before this becomes a reality, Luo said, but his engineering lab has partnered with Probst’s psychology team to better understand human-robot interactions early in the process.

“It’s good to know in advance how humans will react to soft robots and then incorporate that information into the design,” Probst said. “That’s why we work in tandem, where the psychology side informs the technical development of these robots in their infancy.”

To further test the results of this study, the researchers plan to bring participants into the laboratory to interact directly with soft robots. In addition to collecting self-reported surveys from participants, they will also measure participants’ physical stress responses, such as heart rate and galvanic skin responses, which are changes in the electrical resistance of the skin in response. to emotional stress.