Mobile service robots employ vision systems to discern objects in their workspaces for navigation or object detection. The lighting conditions of the surroundings affect a robot’s ability to discern and navigate in its work environment. Robot inclusivity principles can be used to determine the suitability of a site’s lighting condition for robot performance. This paper proposes a novel framework for autonomously auditing the Robot Inclusivity Index of indoor environments based on the lighting condition (RII-lux). The framework considers the factors of light intensity and the presence of glare to define the RII-Lux of a particular location in an environment. The auditing framework is implemented on a robot to autonomously generate a heatmap visually representing the variation in RII-Lux of an environment. The applicability of the proposed framework for generating true-to-life RII-Lux heatmaps has been validated through experimental results.

Increasingly, robots are decision makers in manufacturing, finance, medicine, and other areas, but the technology may not be trusted enough for reasons such as gaps between expectation and competency, challenges in explainable AI, users’ exposure level to the technology, etc. To investigate the trust issues between users and robots, the authors employed in this study, the case of robots making decisions in football (or “soccer” as it is known in the US) games as referees. More specifically, we presented a study on how the appearance of a human and three robotic linesmen (as presented in a study by Malle et al.) impacts fans’ trust and preference for them. Our online study with 104 participants finds a positive correlation between “Trust” and “Preference” for humanoid and human linesmen, but not for “AI” and “mechanical” linesmen. Although no significant trust differences were observed for different types of linesmen, participants do prefer human linesman to mechanical and humanoid linesmen. Our qualitative study further validated these quantitative findings by probing possible reasons for people’s preference: when the appearance of a linesman is not humanlike, people focus less on the trust issues but more on other reasons for their linesman preference such as efficiency, stability, and minimal robot design. These findings provide important insights for the design of trustworthy decision-making robots which are increasingly integrated to more and more aspects of our everyday lives.

Mobile service robots experience excessive vibrations when travelling over uneven surfaces in their workspace, increasing the degradation rate of the mechanical components or disrupting the robot’s sensing abilities for proper localization and navigational capabilities. Robot inclusivity principles can determine the suitability of a site for robot performance by considering the ground’s unevenness. This paper proposes a novel framework to autonomously evaluate the Robot Inclusivity Level of buildings based on surface unevenness (RIL-SU) by quantifying the surface unevenness of floor surfaces. The surface unevenness values are converted to RIL-SU using a rule-based approach, and the corresponding RIL-SU is tagged to the map location. A coloured heatmap based on the RIL-SU values is created as a visual representation of the RIL-SU of a given space. This heatmap would be useful for modifying the environment to make it more robot-friendly or restrict the robot’s operation in certain areas to avoid possible robot failures. The experimental results show that the proposed framework can successfully generate a valid RIL-SU heatmap for building environments.

High-rise concrete structures and crowded public spaces are familiar scenes in today’s fast-paced world, resulting in decreased restorative time for humans with nature. Therefore, interior designers and architects have strived to amalgamate nature-inspired installations into architectural design in an attempt to augment interior spaces into becoming more restorative. In this paper, we explored the development of nature-inspired robotic structures for playful and interactive experiences, which are essential factors contributing to the inhabitant’s perceived restorativeness. Our work focused on developing three kinetic art-based "robotic plant" installations for indoor public spaces: soft oscillating LaLang (Impreecta Cylindrica) fields, a blooming dandelion-like flower, and a blooming lotus-like flower. These installations aim to create a relaxing and restorative user experience through bio-inspired design with playful and pleasant plant-human interactions. During the art exhibition, the mesmerizing kinetic movement of the developed devices and their physical interactivity attracted visitors to engage with the devices successfully. This paper discusses the design and development of these three robotic plant installations.