Dynamic robot autonomy

Abstract

Robot autonomy is of high relevance for HRI, in particular for interactions of humans and robots in mixed human-robot teams. In this paper, we investigate empirically the extent to which autonomy based on independent decision making and acting by the robot can affect the objective task performance of a mixed human-robot team while being subjectively acceptable to humans. The results demonstrate that humans not only accept robot autonomy in the interest of the team, but also view the robot more as a team member and find it easier to interact with, despite a very minimalist graphical/speech interface. Moreover, we find evidence that dynamic autonomy reduces human cognitive load.