Measuring Trust of Human Operators in New Generation Rescue Robots

The utilization of mobile rescue robots in dynamic environments decreases the risk to emergency personnel in the field. Recent efforts to improve rescue robot design by using new fluid-power technology provide opportunities of studying the changes in metrics of human-robot interaction (HRI), such as trust. Trust is one of the most critical factors in urban search and rescue missions because it can impact the decisions human make in uncertain conditions. This research is to develop an instrument that can be used to measure trust in human-robotic interaction, which will allow us to collect data for building a quantitative model of trust in HRI. As the first step in this effort, a pilot study was conducted to determine the validity of an instrument to measure the appropriate dimensions of trust in this new human-robot system.