Experimenting extended neglect tolerance model for human robot interactions in service missions

In this paper, we validate the extended neglect tolerance model for estimation of human robot team performance in relation to robot autonomy and compare its results with the traditionally adopted neglect tolerance model which assumes zero false alarms in human robot interactions. Extended neglect tolerance model estimates robot performance in human robot teams, where the human operator switches control between robots sequentially, based on acceptable performance levels, taking into account any false alarms and their respective demands. Experiments were performed with Robo-Erectus@Home, a service robot across tele-operation, and semi-autonomous modes of autonomy where a human operator controlled the robot to perform a walking assistant task. Measured false alarm demands and robot performances were largely consistent with the extended neglect tolerance model predictions for both autonomy modes. We also compared traditionally adopted neglect tolerance and extended neglect tolerance model for the same experimental design. The results showed that the latter offers better estimates of robot performance and attention demands, due to the inclusion of false alarms into the model.