Participants needed for autonomous agricultural machinery study
Researchers in the Department of Biosystems Engineering are seeking participants.
Purpose of study:
You are invited to participate in a study that will be carried out in a lab to determine which medium would be suitable to attract the attention of the supervisor of an autonomous agricultural machine during emergencies. The study should take no longer than two hours to complete.
Role of participants:
You will be asked to do the following;
- Record daily farm management tasks (on a screen) and monitor the operation of a simulated autonomous sprayer (on another screen).
- Click on a button to acknowledge that you have perceived a warning notification.
- You will be presented a trial questionnaire and an end-of-experiment questionnaire to rank each warning mode(s) and give your personal experience during the entire experiment respectively.
Inclusion/exclusion criteria:
- Potential participants must be willing to submit to auditory, visual and tactile screening should have either three (3) years of farming experience specifically with the knowledge of spraying of fertilizer and herbicides or tractor driving experience and also should be in the age bracket of 18-35 years old.
- Participants who do not have either farming experience or tractor driving experience and less than 18 years old or more than 35 years old would not be eligible.
- Also, participants with impaired vision and hearing would be ineligible.
Contact information:
Interested participants can email Anita (Principal Investigator): ezeagbaa [at] myumanitoba [dot] ca, Phone: 431-335-9730 or Dr. Danny Mann (Advisor): danny [dot] mann [at] umanitoba [dot] ca for more information.
This study has been approved by the Research Ethics Board at the University of Manitoba, Fort Garry Campus. If you have any concerns or complaints about this project, you may contact any of the above-named persons or the Human Ethics Coordinator at 204-474-7122.
A $25 UM bookstore gift card will be provided as honorarium.