A Corroborative Approach to Verification and Validation of Human--Robot Teams

Abstract

We present an approach for the verification and validation (V&V) of robot assistants in the context of human-robot interactions (HRI), to demonstrate their trustworthiness through corroborative evidence of their safety and functional correctness. Key challenges include the complex and unpredictable nature of the real world in which assistant and service robots operate, the limitations on available V&V techniques when used individually, and the consequent lack of confidence in the V&V results. Our approach, called corroborative V&V, addresses these challenges by combining several different V&V techniques; in this paper we use formal verification (model checking), simulation-based testing, and user validation in experiments with a real robot. We demonstrate our corroborative V&V approach through a handover task, the most critical part of a complex cooperative manufacturing scenario, for which we propose some safety and liveness requirements to verify and validate. We construct formal models, simulations and an experimental test rig for the HRI. To capture requirements we use temporal logic properties, assertion checkers and textual descriptions. This combination of approaches allows V&V of the HRI task at different levels of modelling detail and thoroughness of exploration, thus overcoming the individual limitations of each technique. Should the resulting V&V evidence present discrepancies, an iterative process between the different V&V techniques takes place until corroboration between the V&V techniques is gained from refining and improving the assets (i.e., system and requirement models) to represent the HRI task in a more truthful manner. Therefore, corroborative V&V affords a systematic approach to 'meta-V&V,' in which different V&V techniques can be used to corroborate and check one another, increasing the level of certainty in the results of V&V.

arXiv comment49 pages

References in corpus (5)

• Formal Verification of Obstacle Avoidance and Navigation of Ground Robots
• Towards the Safety of Human-in-the-Loop Robotics: Challenges and Opportunities for Safety Assurance of Robotic Co-Workers
• Systematic and Realistic Testing in Simulation of Control Code for Robots in Collaborative Human-Robot Interactions
• A Model for Safety Case Confidence Assessment
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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Formalizing and Guaranteeing* Human-Robot Interaction
• FABRIC: A Framework for the Design and Evaluation of Collaborative Robots with Extended Human Adaptation
• Safety assurance of an industrial robotic control system using hardware/software co-verification
• Towards Compositional Verification for Modular Robotic Systems
• Using Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems: Five Recipes for Formal Verification
• Co-Simulation of Human-Robot Collaboration: from Temporal Logic to 3D Simulation