Mapping trustworthy systems for RAS in social care (MAP-RAS)

Effective embedding of robotics and autonomous systems for social care will require alignment across many levels. In previous research we have looked at conflicts and confluences in imaginaries of robot-enabled care held by stakeholders and publics, using a series of Lego Serious Play (LSP) workshops. We now seek to move from the imaginary to the concrete through concentrating on an actual robot to help with dressing which is under development in the Resilience Node, and imagining how this might integrate within the existing health-social care ecosystem in the UK.

Again employing LSP as a tool for creative exploration, we will co-create with roboticists and relevant stakeholders a physical map of this system in order to identify agents and obstacles which may influence trust in, and therefore the integration of, this robot, and experiment with potential reconfigurations. We will also conduct a series of interviews as part of a lab ethnography using Socio-technical Integration Research (STIR) in the lab where the dressing robot is being developed, in order to better understand how engineers make technical decisions and interpret and act upon the mapping information.