Building a trust ecosystem for remote inspection technologies in ship hull inspections

ABSTRACT The article contributes to the discussion concerning the role of trust in robotic and autonomous systems (RAS), with a sharp focus on remote inspection technologies (RITs) for vessel inspection, survey and maintenance. To this end, the article provides a first-hand insight into one of the major findings from BUGWRIGHT2—a collaborative project co-funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme that aims to change the European vessel-structure maintenance landscape. In doing so, this article explores trust from a psychological perspective, reflecting on its characteristics and predictors, followed by a discussion on the AI-trust ecosystem as envisaged by the European Commission. Structured interviews with thirty-three subject matter experts guide the main analysis revealing that trust is an essential precondition for integrating RITs into the current manual-driven inspection system. A synoptic overview of the vital trust elements is provided before carving out the ways forward for developing a trustworthy environment governed by Human-Robot Interaction.