EASIER - Enabling and Assessing Trust when Cooperating with Robots in Disaster Response

In order to increase trust in robot systems and reduce cognitive load, the project aims to develop well-founded methods for measuring trust in assistance systems and the cognitive load caused by their use. Furthermore, options for intervention in (1) the design of the user interface for input and output, (2) the degree of autonomy and (3) the transparency of decisions by the robot that allow an improvement of these parameters are to be examined. The primary innovation of the project is that trust and the cognitive load as well as measures to improve them are thoroughly investigated in an interdisciplinary team (psychologists, visualization experts, robotics, emergency services). The planned direct coupling of the assessment of trust and cognitive load with possible changes in the interaction design and the behavior of the robot will provide new insights into the nature of trust in assistance robots and enable the development of improved assistance systems. The immediate practical benefit of this knowledge is evaluated in realistic field tests with emergency services.