Social and collaborative aspects of interaction with a service robot

To an increasing extent, robots are being designed to become a part of the lives of ordinary people. This calls for new models of the interaction between humans and robots, taking advantage of human social and communicative skills. Furthermore, human-robot relationships must be understood in the context of use of robots, and based on empirical studies of humans and robots in real settings. This paper discusses social aspects of interaction with a service robot, departing from our experiences of designing a fetch-and-carry robot for motion-impaired users in an office environment. We present the motivations behind the design of the Cero robot, especially its communication paradigm. Finally, we discuss experiences from a recent usage study, and research issues emerging from this work. A conclusion is that addressing only the primary user in service robotics is unsatisfactory, and that the focus should be on the setting, activities and social interactions of the group of people where the robot is to be used. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.