Is More Autonomy Always Better?

Abstract

A robot-assisted feeding system can potentially help a user with upper-body mobility impairments eat independently. However, autonomous assistance in the real world is challenging because of varying user preferences, impairment constraints, and possibility of errors in uncertain and unstructured environments. An autonomous robot-assisted feeding system needs to decide the appropriate strategy to acquire a bite of hard-to-model deformable food items, the right time to bring the bite close to the mouth, and the appropriate strategy to transfer the bite easily. Our key insight is that a system should be designed based on a user's preference about these various challenging aspects of the task. In this work, we explore user preferences for different modes of autonomy given perceived error risks and also analyze the effect of input modalities on technology acceptance. We found that more autonomy is not always better, as participants did not have a preference to use a robot with partial autonomy over a robot with low autonomy. In addition, participants' user interface preference changes from voice control during individual dining to web-based during social dining. Finally, we found differences on average ratings when grouping the participants based on their mobility limitations (lower vs. higher) that suggests that ratings from participants with lower mobility limitations are correlated with higher expectations of robot performance. CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in accessibility; • Social and professional topics → People with disabilities; Assistive technologies; • Computer systems organization → Robotic autonomy.

Reproducible abnormalities of functional gradient reliably predict clinical and cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia

“…In conclusion, the autonomy-switchable guiding cane and car with high usability ensured the explorations on levels of autonomy and machine forms can be conducted in various environments. Our findings on levels of autonomy are the first to understand the need for a sense of control, trust, and safety in guiding robots for the BLV group, which can help to solve psychological issues caused by full autonomy assistive robots and the performance issues caused by partial autonomy and manual assistive methods mentioned by previous studies [10,27,30]. The evidence on the advantages and disadvantages of the cane-form and car-form guiding robots can provide instruction for designers.…”

“…A study researching disabled people's perception of autonomy level was based on a robot-assisted feeding system [10]. They proposed three types of autonomy that could provide users with various degrees of control.…”

Independence in the Home: A Wearable Interface for a Person with Quadriplegia to Teleoperate a Mobile Manipulator

“…However, few SC methods have been tested in complex real-world environments, such as household settings. While developing SC methods, the user's feeling of control over the system is an important consideration as previous studies show that higher levels of autonomy can lead to a reduced feeling of control [5,26]. In comparison to past work, our proposed SC method, Driver Assistance, limits the shared control to specific robot joints to exemplify the human perception of control.…”

Semi-Autonomous Control of an Exoskeleton using Computer Vision

“…In some previous systems [22,30,31], autonomous functionality was integrated with a "point and click" approach, e.g., pointing to an object of interest, clicking, and letting the robot/exoskeleton perform the desired action without any user opportunity to stop the system, potentially causing harm [56,57]. However, this approach has two caveats: the individual operating the device may feel that it is acting on its own accord and thus may feel distanced from it rather than identifying with the device [31].…”

“…If the latter was the case, the user could manually correct the motion using direct manual control. Not only did this ensure that the user was always in control, but it also increased the safety considerably [56,57].…”