Excerpt:

>Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin recently received expanded funding from the National Science Foundation to continue their work studying human-robot interactions.

>To do this, the team plans to release four-legged robots around the university campus and collect data on what it finds. The project will begin in 2023 and run for five years.

>“When we deploy robots in the real world, it's not just a technical problem, it's actually a socio-technical problem,” Joydeep Biswas, assistant professor of computer science in the College of Natural Sciences and member of the research team, told Ars.

>The research team will set up a network, and UT Austin community members—students, staff, et cetera—will be able to use an app on their smartphones to deliver goods like hand wipes and sanitizer.

> 

>While deployed, the robots will inevitably run into (possibly literally) pedestrians, cyclists, scooter riders, and larger vehicles. The researchers will watch and study the interactions between these mobile humans and machines.

>The robots will be monitored either in-person or remotely so the researchers can collect data about how the robots interact with the humans they encounter and stop the robots if they act in undesirable ways.

>The team will also create a research database to collect the data from the study and investigate how we can deploy autonomous robots in human environments, “not just for five minutes or for an hour, but for years at a time,” Biswas said.

Doug Johnson for Ars Technica, 12 November 2022.