Abstract
Ensuring human safety has been one of the most critical considerations within the field of human–robot interaction. To explore the effects of working with autonomous robots on human coworkers’ perceived workload and job performance, two experiments were conducted in this study. Eight participants were recruited in the first experiment. Results revealed an increase in both subjective and objective workload measurements: compared to the baseline “no robot” to “empty payload” condition, the sum of NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) scores increased from 129.3 (58.8) to 147.6 (53.7) ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$p$</tex-math></inline-formula> -value = 0.041) and the pupil diameter increased from 4.07 (0.64) mm to 4.11 (0.67) mm; while working with a full payload robot, the sum of NASA-TLX scores increased to 151.7 (55.9) ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$p$</tex-math></inline-formula> -value = 0.010) and the pupil diameter increased to 4.12 (0.66) mm. Increased task completion time (3.1% for empty payload condition and 6.6% for full payload condition) showed a decrease in human productivity. However, this slight human output reduction was compensated by the substantial gain from the robot. Similar effects of autonomous mobile robots on participants’ NASA-TLX scores and task completion time were observed in the second experiment, where eight participants performed the order picking and sorting tasks in a high-fidelity grocery store setting. Results from the study suggested the feasibility of applying fully autonomous mobile robots in Wholesale and Retail Trade settings to improve human–robot team productivity while prioritizing physical safety and reasonable increases in mental workload.
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