ABSTRACT
The springboard for this book was a study designed to increase the understanding of everyday robot interactions in the U.S. military. In order to streamline this enormous overarching goal into a focused and feasible study, research concentrated on individuals within the military who interacted with robots every day. At the time this work began, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel were one of the most easily identified groups of people who interacted with robots almost daily at some point in their service. Like any cultural group, Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel consciously and unconsciously collaboratively create a collection of shared knowledge, artifacts, and meaning associated with these things. Due to the nature of their service responsibilities and their common experience of jobrelated robot use, for many EOD personnel, their experience places robots as a significant part of this system. By focusing on EOD personnel as an initial way to explore experiences with robots, the study examined structures, workings, and social origins of military human-robot interactions in one of the first groups to use robots as part of their common tool kit.
