Evaluating the UX Obtained from a Service Robot That Provides Ancillary Way-Finding Support in an Industrial Environment

Abstract

In addition to production-oriented robots in industry, service robots with social skills can also perform a role in production environments. They can communicate naturally (e.g., verbally) with human workers, providing on-demand ancillary services that support primary production activities. In this paper, a guide robot that provides way-finding services within an industrial facility (such as finding a person, a resource or a place) is presented. Requirements for such a robot are proposed and an early prototype of a robot with indoor navigation skills and voice interpretation ability (via a paired mobile device and app) is described. A user study is also reported, in which the user experience (UX) obtained from interacting with the robot and receiving the service is assessed. The results of said study reveal that usability was very high but overall UX was improvable, due to slow navigation speed, limited situation awareness and simplistic interpretation of voice petitions.