Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
reaching high acceptance by inexperienced users,
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24-hour service in household environments,
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robots in environments dangerous to humans,
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mobility,
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incremental development of robots.
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Nevertheless only a few industrial robot manufacturers have entered development
and manufacturing of service-robots. Most companies offering service-robot solutions
have either built up their own advanced robot technology or accessed it through
partnerships.
As pointed out in the case studies described in the 2004 EURON Research
Roadmap (EURON, 2004), the way towards the development of a competitive and
marketable system depends on the following factors:
Rigorous systems approach.
In order to develop systems suitable and
qualified for daily life contexts, the design of service-robots must care aspects
related to:
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the specific services (analysis of the services to support, the related
policies and the role of users);
the users (their features and their expectations from the robots);
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the work environment (the presence of robot in pre-existing surroundings
should not require complex and expensive changes to the environment);
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the ways of interactions between robots, persons and environment
(interfaces, feedback).
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Moreover during design it is fundamental to evaluate the acceptability of the
systems (influenced by physical appearance and the perception of usefulness and
usability).
Development and system costs.
Service-robots should carry out elaborate
tasks in complex contexts and so this can induce an increasing of costs related
to the development of the system. For this reason it is fundamental making a
deep analysis of costs related to service, both executed without the robots and
with them (looking costs for components and persons' work and expenses
borne from community) and a balance between costs and benefits.
Furthermore designers should evaluate the possibility of using less complex
robots together with alternative components and subsystems for carrying out
the same services with less costs.
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Technical requirements.
Beyond the complexity of traditional industrial
robots, the service-robotics should to carried out tasks that required advanced
functionalities and intelligences (such as navigation in indoor and outdoor
environments, manipulation, planning of actions, recognition of different
contexts, interaction and communication with human and the environment).
For this reason research should point to develop novel and smart components,
both hardware and software, that can guarantee high performances, low power
consuming and quick processing and reactiveness.
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