As robots are increasingly used in Search and Rescue (SAR) missions, it becomes highly relevant to study how SAR robots can be developed and deployed in a responsible way. In contrast to some other robot application domains, e.g. military and healthcare, the ethics of robot-assisted SAR are relatively under examined. This paper aims to fill this gap by assessing and analyzing important values and value tensions of stakeholders of SAR robots. The paper describes the outcomes of several Value Assessment workshops that were conducted with rescue workers, in the context of a European research project on robot-assisted SAR (the TRADR project). The workshop outcomes are analyzed and key ethical concerns and dilemmas are identified and discussed. Several recommendations for future ethics research leading to responsible development and deployment of SAR robots are provided.@en

Due to advances in technology, the world around us contains an increasingnumber of robots, virtual agents, and other intelligent systems. These systems allhave a certain degree of autonomy. For the people who interact with an intelligentsystem it is important to obtain a good understanding of its degree of autonomy:what tasks can the system perform autonomously and to what extent? In this paperwe therefore present a study on how a system’s characteristics affect people’s perceptionof its autonomy. This was investigated by asking fire-fighters to rate theautonomy of a number of search and rescue robots in different shapes and situations.In this paper, we identify the following seven aspects of perceived autonomy: timeinterval of interaction, obedience, informativeness, task complexity, task implication,physical appearance, and physical distance to human operator. The study showed thatincreased disobedience, task complexity and physical distance of a robot can increaseperceived autonomy.@en

Uneven workload distributions in teams can lead to suboptimal team performance. This paper therefore describes the design of a virtual assistant that supports workload harmonization in teams by measuring workload, informing team members about their own and other team members’ workload, and supporting team members in the redistribution of workload. The virtual assistant was developed in the context of train traffic control according to the situated Cognitive Engineering (sCE) methodology, which was extended to allow for a value sensitive design process. More specifically, the values ‘insight,’ ‘helping others’ and ‘privacy’ were explicitly accounted for throughout the design of the virtual assistant. A prototype of the virtual assistant was evaluated positively in a focus group. Thereby, the contribution of the paper is twofold. First, an improvement in a human-centered development methodology—sCE with values—is described and its use is demonstrated in an actual design case. Second, a novel, positively evaluated solution for workload harmonization in teams is presented.

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Research shows that music with a strong personal meaning can enhance the social, cognitive, and affective experiences of both people with dementia (PwD) and their social environment. We applied a human-centred design method, called situated Cognitive Engineering, to develop the conceptual design and design rationale of the Music ePartner. The design rationale specifies the general knowledge-base (ontology), context (use cases), and expected effects (claims) of the ePartner support. Three functionalities
were developed through rapid prototyping: (1) annotated play lists, (2) a music and picture album, and (3) a picture slide show. Accompanied by a close relative, five PwD participated in a formative evaluation of the prototype at their regular day care centres. All participants interacted with all three functionalities of the prototype as they would in their natural setting. The researchers observed participants’ responses to the prototype using observational scoring forms, and interviewed participants about their experiences using semi-structured interviews. Results showed that the music stimulated PwD to tell life stories related to the songs. Furthermore, music evoked positive individual and group experiences. Specific constraints, additional user needs, and interaction requirements for the Music ePartner resulted in a refinement of both the requirements baseline and the design rationale.
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