User Perception of the Robot’s Error in Heterogeneous Multi-robot System Performing Sequential Cooperative Task

This study investigates how the user’s mental model of an error in a heterogeneous multi-robot system (MRS) is formed while executing a sequential cooperative task. We applied a heterogeneous MRS consisting of a delivery robot and an information robot to the medicine delivery service in the infectious disease ward where the separation of the contaminated area and non-contaminated area is necessary to avoid infections. In this study, we define the robot which initiates the service in a sequential task as an initiating robot and the robot which executes the subsequent task following after the initiating robot as the follow-up robot. We examine how the initiating robot’s error would affect the user perception of the follow-up robot’s error and how the perceived error influences competence and trust in the follow-up robot. As a result, we found that when two robots cooperate sequentially, the user's evaluation of the follow-up robot’s error can be influenced by the initial robot’s error. In addition, we discovered that the trust and competence of the follow-up robot can be impacted by the initiating robot in heterogeneous MRS performing sequential cooperative tasks.