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

随着多机器人系统、人机协作、环境重建和虚拟农业系统的发展，数字农业日益普及。然而，我们离完全自动化的农场还很远，仍然需要确保人类工人与机器人或部署在农场和田地中的自主系统之间的互动是有效和成功的。正如机器人和人类可能需要密切合作的许多情况一样，这给我们带来了监管、法律、道德和互动方面的挑战。迄今为止，研究主要集中在探索农场层面对精准农业和数字农业的采用，或者集中在农业创新扩散的基于主体的模型上。然而，将人力和技术成分结合在一起的研究并不常见，而且没有发现考虑到本项目重点关注的方面，也没有研究遵循与利益相关者和最终用户共同创造的方法。这些方法已经成功地应用于其他领域（例如，教育机器人，辅助机器人），但没有应用于数字农业或农业机器人。该项目旨在确定农业机器人应用的主要障碍，以及如何改进这些机器人的设计和部署，同时考虑到监管、法律、道德、可访问性和互动相关方面。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。预计研究人员将从项目一开始就与利益相关者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：确定采用数字农业可能受到监管、法律、道德或互动挑战（例如收获、制图和测量、作物维护）影响的主要活动领域。关注主要活动领域，确定更普遍的挑战和共同设计策略/设计选择来克服它们。为在确定的主要活动领域实施数字农业解决方案制定设计框架。方法：从项目一开始就与利益相关者（如政策制定者、行业代表）和最终用户（农场和田野工人和管理者）共同创造将是该项目的核心。在博士项目的各个研究部分（例如，问卷调查、观察、焦点小组、访谈、研讨会）中，预计将使用定量和定性方法相结合的混合方法。

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).