Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
indoor and outdoor GPS for service-robot;
•
smart environment able to perceive and recognize some components and
elements of the context;
•
communication and transfer of information from smart environment and
robot;
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advanced sensing capacity to recognize obstacles and strategies to avoid them.
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Reliability.
Service-robots should be conceived and designed to be reliable both from
technological and social points of view.
Looking to technological aspects and considering their role in society, service-
robots should be robust, accurate and safe. They should work and run without requiring
a continuous intervention and supervision of users and they must be design to not cause
damages to persons and environment also in case of malfunctions.
From social side, they should be designed to cover and carry out services
necessary to persons in daily life and to provide the support really required and
expected from users in the specific context.
Design methodologies.
In order to develop systems really applicable and working in
daily life of persons, the design methodology should be “Human/Service Centred
Design”. This approach is centred on users and services; these actors should be deeply
analyzed to understand their needs, their expectation and factors that can influence the
acceptability of the service-robot for persons. Feedback coming from this study should
address all design phases. Furthermore, it is fundamental during all project stages to
carry out periodical checks with possible end-users to assess that results obtained up to
that time reflect final objectives and expectations of the project and to verify the
acceptability of this technological device by users.
Dynamism and scalability.
The important challenges of research in the field of
service-robotics are the development of modular, dynamic and scalable systems. These
proprieties are fundamental for working in the real daily dynamic context; so robots
should be conceived:
to be update both from hardware and software sides without requiring
complex twisting;
•
to be suited from various types of users and to work in several different
contexts and environments;
•
to cover various services.
•
A complex technology roadmap on robotics is included in the Technology
Roadmap for Japan, edited by NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization), Japan's largest public R&D management organization for
promoting the development of advanced industrial, environmental, new energy and
energy conservation technologies.
Figure 6 provides a snapshot on Japan's vision on robotics and service robotics
evolution in the next 15-20 years.
