Concurrent Consideration of Human and Machine Reliability in Human-Machine Systems - A Virtual Environment Approach

Reliability is an important concept contributing to building trust in human-machine systems (HMS). Existing studies have reported separate assessment of human and machine reliability. Thus, there is a gap on considering human and machine reliability concurrently in HMS. To fill the gap, this study investigated the feasibility of such concurrent consideration by using a virtual environment (VE) approach to simulate an HMS. In a developed VE, each human participant performed a task of exploring an invisible surface to perceive its shape, followed by his/her response to a recommendation about the shape made by the VE setting (the machine). Related to human reliability, the perception might be disrupted through a mismatch between the actual shape and force feedback delivered to the participant’s hand. Associated with machine reliability, the recommendation could be incorrect to induce a fault in the setting. Thus, the shape of the invisible surface became an instrument to combine human and machine reliability. The outcomes of the study confirmed the feasibility of combining human and machine reliability in the HMS. Moreover, human reliability might be dominant in the HMS to accomplish the task.