Session: 16-01-01: Poster Session: NSF-Funded Research (Grad & Undergrad)

Paper Number: 100226

100226 - Fw-Htf-P: Mitigating Risks in Future Police Work Through Social Telerobotic Communication 

Robots are used in vastly different fields including healthcare, manufacturing, education, and law enforcement. In the case of law enforcement, robots are specifically utilized during emergency and disaster responses that may pose lethal dangers to suspects, bystanders, and law enforcement officers (LEOs). In high-risk situations, robots can provide safer alternatives to direct human activities and interactions (e.g., explosive ordinance disposal and surveillance) by distancing LEOs from potential dangers and threats. Recent advances in technology have increased the accessibility to the hardware and software needed to build and program robots and resulted in increased incorporation of robotics into law enforcement. However, due to the complexity, cost, burden of use, and other limiting factors, many LEOs remain hesitant to adopt robotics into their day-to-day operations. Moreover, robots focused on facilitating communication between officers during emergencies, or between officers and civilians, have yet to be utilized widely. Although robots can be extremely beneficial to law enforcement and provide safer alternatives to direct invention, some have argued that there is a lack of transparency and accountability in robots.

To best utilize robots in law enforcement, it is necessary to overcome the pitfalls of adopting robots in law enforcement. One of the barriers of LEOs, particularly police officers, using robots is the lack of trust in their interaction with the robot itself and building a trustworthy relationship between the robot and LEO is vitally important. Primarily, factors which influence human-robot trust fall into three categories: human-related, robot-related, and environmental-related factors. The human-related factors include those associated to human abilities (e.g., attention capacity, expertise, previous experience) and characteristics (e.g., attitudes toward robots, personality features). The robot-related factors include features such as physical appearance, robot functionality, size, weight because these can affect how people perceive the robot. Another influential robot-related factor in building trust is the robot's level of automation and control (e.g., autonomous, completely teleoperated, semi-teleoperated). Furthermore, the environment in which the robot is placed plays an essential role in building trust. Environmental factors such as team collaboration (e.g., in-group membership, culture, communication, shared mental modes) and tasking (e.g., task type, task complexity, multi-tasking requirement, and physical environment) affect the quality of trust in human-robot interaction (HRI).

In this project, a new teleoperated communicative robotic platform developed and tested to explore LEOs' attitudes towards the application of robots in law enforcement. The proposed platform consisted of a mobile robot equipped with two-way audio/video communication channels. It was piloted and used by LEOs as a communication medium to interact with other individuals. Pretest and post-test surveys allowed for examinations of LEO attitudes, emotions, and trust in police robot platforms. Different measures, including negative attitude towards robot’s scale (NARS), human-robot interaction trust scale (HRIT), new general self-efficacy scale (NGSF) were used to investigate these concepts. The results reveal that in general, LEOs had a positive experience operating the robot, interacting with other individuals via the robot, and displayed a high level of trust in the communicative robot platform. These findings were also validated and verified by further analysis via the inquiry into robot design scale which tapped into important features and characteristics of the robot from the perspective of LEOs regarding their trust in the proposed communicative platform. LEOs recognized various features of robots as most important to them, such as size, ability to travel, camera, display, control, and battery life.

This project’s result reports findings on the trust in communication robots from a law enforcement perspective, however, this is only one perspective and further research into the use of robots in law enforcement is warranted, especially in examining the views of the public. Our future works will examine how the public perceives robots in law enforcement, and inquire into privacy, ethics, law, and safety to mitigate any potential risks.

Presenting Author: Roya Salehzadeh The University of Alabama

Presenting Author Biography: Roya Salehzadeh is a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Alabama pursuing her PhD studies under Prof. Nader Jalili's supervision.

Authors:

Nader Jalili The University of Alabama
Roya Salehzadeh The University of Alabama