Human Trust After Drone Failure: Study of the Effects of Drone Type and Failure Type on Human-Drone Trust

Advances in the navigation and autonomy of drones, along with significant advances in manufacturing microprocessors and sensor systems, caused a growing trend in deploying drones. In the near future, we should expect to see drones collaborating with humans in various applications. When we talk about human-robot collaboration, we should always consider that trust is a major element that should be taken into consideration, especially in high-risk situations. In this study, we perform two experiments using a similar methodology to compare the effects of different drone failures on human trust. We compare the effects of failures with different catastrophic levels on human trust. In our first experiment, we tested the effects of a drone collision with an obstacle on human trust. The experiment results showed that the collisions of cage-protected drones affect human trust less negatively than unprotected drones. In our second experiment, we compared the effects of a drone collision with a wall with drone connection loss on human trust. The experiment results showed that a drone's connection loss affects human trust more negatively than a drone collision when the drone possesses a protective cage. Our results can help guide robot designers in building/programming robots for diverse scenarios by showing what features a human operator values most.