Co-creation and trust to address regulatory, ethical and interactional challenges in Digital Farming

随着多机器人系统、人-机器人协作以及环境重建和虚拟农业系统的发展，数字农业的普及正在增长。然而，我们还远未拥有完全自动化的农场，仍然需要确保人类工人与部署在农场和田间的机器人或自主系统之间的互动是有效和成功的。与机器人和人类可能需要密切合作的许多情况一样，这向我们提出了监管、法律、伦理和互动方面的挑战。到目前为止，研究的重点要么是探索在农场一级采用精准和数字农业，要么是基于代理的农业创新传播模式。然而，将人和技术部分结合在一起的研究并不常见，考虑到该项目侧重的方面，还没有发现任何研究，也没有研究遵循与利益攸关方和EN用户共同创建的方法。这些方法已经成功地用于其他领域(例如，教育机器人、辅助机器人)，但不是在数字农业或农业机器人领域。该项目旨在找出在采用农业机器人时的主要障碍，以及如何改进这些机器人及其部署的设计，同时考虑到监管、法律、道德、可获得性和互动相关方面。它将调查这一领域的信任构建，探索可能有助于创造信任水平适当的环境的抑制因素和促进因素--避免信任不足和过度信任。预计研究人员将从本项目开始就与利益攸关方和最终用户密切合作，遵循共同研究和共同设计的方法。预期目标：确定主要活动领域，在这些领域中，数字化农业的采用可能会受到监管、法律、伦理或互动挑战的影响(例如，收获、测绘和测绘、作物维护)。将重点放在主要活动领域，确定更普遍的挑战，并共同设计战略/设计选择来克服这些挑战。制定在确定的主要活动领域实施数字农业解决方案的设计框架。方法：从项目开始就与利益攸关方(如政策制定者、行业代表)和最终用户(农场和实地工作人员及管理人员)共同创建将是该项目的核心。预计将在博士项目的不同研究部分(例如，问卷、观察、重点小组、访谈、讲习班)中使用混合方法方法，将定量方法和定性方法相结合。

The prevalence of Digital Farming is growing with multi-robot systems, human-robot collaboration, and environment reconstruction and virtual farming systems. However, we are far from having fully automated farms, and there is still a need for making sure the interaction between human workers and robots or autonomous systems deployed in farms and fields is effective and successful. As with many situations where robots and humans may need to work closely, this presents us with regulatory, legal, ethical and interactional challenges. Up to date, studies have focussed on either exploring farm-level adoption of precision and digital farming, or on agent-based models on the diffusion of agricultural innovations. However, studies bringing together both the human and technological components are uncommon, and none have been found considering the aspects that this project focuses on, nor studies following a co-creation approach with stakeholders and en-users. These approaches have been used successfully in other areas (e.g., educational robotics, assistive robotics), but not in digital farming or agricultural robotics. This project aims to identify the main obstacles when it comes to the uptake of agricultural robots, and on how to improve the design of these and of their deployments, taking into consideration regulatory, legal, ethical, accessibility, and interaction related aspects. It will investigate the construct of trust in this area, exploring inhibitors and enablers that may help in creating an environment where trust levels are appropriate - avoiding under-trust and over-trust. It will be expected that the researcher will work closely with stakeholders and end-users from the beginning of this project, following a co-research and co-design approach. Expected objectives: Identify the main activity areas where the uptake of digital farming may be affected by regulatory, legal, ethical, or interactional challenges (e.g., harvesting, mapping and surveying, crop maintenance). Focussing on the main activity areas, identify the challenges that are more prevalent and co-design strategies/design choices to overcome them. Develop a design framework for the implementation of digital farming solutions in the main activity areas identified. Methodology: Co-creation with stakeholders (e.g., policy makers, industry representatives) and end-users (farm and field workers and managers) from the beginning of the project will be core to this project. Mixed-methods approaches, following a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods will be expected to be used in the various studies part of the PhD project (e.g., questionnaires, observation, focus groups, interviews, workshops).