Impact of Transparency and Explanations on Trust and Situation Awareness in Human–Robot Teams

Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) missions continue to benefit from the incorporation of human–robot teams (HRTs). USAR environments can be ambiguous, hazardous, and unstable. The integration of robot teammates into USAR missions has enabled human teammates to access areas of uncertainty, including hazardous locations. For HRTs to be effective, it is pertinent to understand the factors that influence team effectiveness, such as having shared goals, mutual understanding, and efficient communication. The purpose of our research is to determine how to (1) better establish human trust, (2) identify useful levels of robot transparency and robot explanations, (3) ensure situation awareness, and (4) encourage a bipartisan role amongst teammates. By implementing robot transparency and robot explanations, we found that the driving factors for effective HRTs rely on robot explanations that are context-driven and are readily available to the human teammate.