Where do you want to use a robotic arm? And what do you want from the robot?

Abstract

What will users want from robotic arms when they become part for their daily lives? We conducted an online survey to collect ideas from people about the “places” in which they would want to use a robotic arm and “tasks” that they would want the robot arm to perform. 96 people anonymously volunteered to participate in this study. More than 240 sets of place and task were identified in the results of two versions of the web-based questionnaires. The results suggest that the household, workplace, and working surface are, respectively, the three most-mentioned places for robotic arm usage in daily life, that participants who were from different countries but were familiar with information technology did not show significant differences in their answers, and that females showed more interest in household and self-care tasks. Our findings can be used as a guideline for future research and development that focuses on daily life tasks for robotic arms.