Trust and Safety in Adaptive Human-Robot Interaction: Legibility, Shared Control, and Human Agency

Robotic systems increasingly support humans in tasks in which effective interaction depends on close coordination and situated decision-making, while autonomy and control are dynamically distributed between human and robot. In these contexts, trust and safety depend not only on technical reliability, but also on whether users can understand and anticipate robot behaviour and retain meaningful opportunities to influence it. These considerations become particularly important when robots adapt their assistance during interaction, for example through shared control, variable autonomy, learning-based assistance, or context-sensitive interaction strategies communicated through multimodal feedback. Such adaptations may reduce human workload and improve task performance, but they can also create uncertainty when the reasons for changes in robot behaviour, the assumptions underlying them, or their implications for user control remain unclear.This Research Topic invites contributions that examine trust and safety in adaptive Human-Robot Interaction through the design, implementation, evaluation, and assurance of robotic systems. We are particularly interested in work that studies how adaptive robot behaviour can be made both legible and comprehensible, how different users calibrate trust in systems that change behaviour during interaction, and how alignment with existing or proposed standards and regulatory requirements can be ensured. Contributions may also examine how shared control, variable autonomy, and multimodal feedback affect perceived safety, reliance, human agency, and opportunities for meaningful user intervention. Relevant contexts include assistive, collaborative, socially assistive, workplace, and domestic robotics, as well as teleoperation, rehabilitation, and other HRI settings in which humans and robots coordinate action. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:- Trust calibration and reliance in adaptive or semi-autonomous robots- Safety, perceived safety, and interaction risk in HRI- Shared control, variable autonomy, and meaningful user intervention- Legibility, explainability, and robot motion intent communication - Multimodal feedback for communicating system state, intent, and uncertainty- Evaluation methods for trust and safety in physical, simulated, XR, and longitudinal HRI studies- System safety, safety cases, and assurance methods for adaptive HRI- Use, misuse, and practical interpretation of standards in HRI contexts- Ethical challenges, human-centred risk analysis, and responsible design of adaptive robots- Techniques and processes for safety and ethics ensurance and assurance in accordance with relevant standards Topic editors: Max Pascher, Catherine Menon Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/84891/trust-and-safety-in-adaptive-human-robot-interaction-legibility-shared-control-and-human-agency